Balinese Nudes in Art

The Journal of the Indo Nordic author’s Collective, Stockholm, SWEDEN
BALINESE NUDES IN ART

Dr Uday Dokras
In the Indonesian region, toplessness was the norm among the Dayak people, Javanese, and the
Balinese people before the introduction of Islam and contact with Western cultures. In Javanese
and Balinese societies, women worked or rested comfortably topless. Among the Dayak, only
big breasted women or married women with sagging breasts cover their breasts because they
interfered with their work. The most famous of the artists who painted Balinese nudes has been
Willem Gerard Hofker ( The Hague , May 2, 1902 - Amsterdam , April 30, 1981 )who was
a Dutch artist ; he was an etcher , graphic artist , painter and draftsman .
Willem Hofker was known for his Balinese landscapes and depictions of Balinese dancers. He
also made many portraits , still lifes , landscapes and depictions of horses. He had been a student
at the Rijksakademie van visual arts in Amsterdam and in 1922 won the Cohen Gosschalk Prize .
In 1936 he left with his wife, artist Maria Hofker-Rueter , for the Dutch East Indies, where he
ended up in Bali and where a large part of his work was realized. Due to the Japanese
occupation , the couple ended up in a camp. After the Japanese defeat, they returned to the
Netherlands in 1946 and settled in Amsterdam.
Because of the bare breasts the visitors found the female form fascinating and the females did not
let them down by their rustic beauty. SA number of photos and paintings emerge from this
period. Now,ofcourse, never to be found in real life.
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Traditional Kamasan Style

Before the 1920's and 1930's Balinese painting was limited to religious applications, calendars and
Wayung Kulit: leather shadow puppet theatre. The subject matter of the paintings were charactarized by
serialized stories about religion or classical Hindu-Bhuddist culture. The main use of painting was as
adornment for temples and collections by local rulers. The paintings illustrated many scenes of a story on
a single, large canvas, giving the pieces a crowded and busy texture, but telling a story from beginning to
end.
This classical, or Kamasan painting style, named for the village where it originated, utilized muted colors
and strong outlines, with figures painted either in profile or three-quarters view. Materials used were
derived from mineral and vegtable sources, using ground animal bone for whites, soot additives for grey
tones, clay and ground stone for colors. Brushes were handmade from bamboo, and canvases were usually
tree bark, wood, or locally produced cloth treated with paste and burnished with a shell.
Ubud Style( Color pic on right above)

By the late 1920's, painting in Bali had met a serious decline, caused in-part by few new commisions for
temples and religious ceremonies. However, at this time a few Western artists began to visit and work in
Bali. Russian-born painter Walter Spies settled in Ubud and was soon joined by Dutch artist Walter
Bonnet. These two artists styles were extremely influential with local artists. Their classical European
painting technique, and choice of subject matter was completly new to Bali. Together with a local art
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patron, Cokorda Gede Agung Sukawati, Bonnet and Spies formed an orgainzation called Pita Maha,
meaning "Great Vitality" or "Strong Detirmination." The goal of this orgainzation was provide guidance
to local painters, help develop painting skills and develop a market for the artist's work. The organization
had nearly 100 members by the end of the 30's. The influence of the Pita Maha was significant. Balinese
artists began to turn to local everyday scenes as their subject matter, as opposed to traditional religious
themes.
Additionally, the artists began adding depth and shading in human forms, perspecitve and color to
paintings that had traditionally been composed primarily of earth tones. The paintings now reflected
singular scenes of Balinese life, such as work in the rice fields, shopping in the marketplace, and bathing.
Works of this period became known as the Ubud style, once again named after the village they originated
in. Bonnet and Spies brought with them tempera and water colors. Balinese artists judiciously
incorporated these media into their painting style. Bonnet's drawing style influence is evidenced in local
work by more careful attention to rendering the human form, subjective lighting of figures, and depth of
field incorporated on canvasses. Spies work was more mystical, influenced in style by Rousseau. Local
artists adapted and interpretated these influences into their own style and took their inspiration form the
lush surrounding land and people.
In addition to perspective and tool changes, the Pita Maha, with the tireless effort of Bonnet, staged a
series of exhibitions and heavily promoted local art to collectors throughout the world, thereby making it
possible for some Balinese artists to earn an adequate living from their work. Through this, paintings
began to be produced for their own sake, as an art form instead of a religious commision, and a large
artistic community began to develop around Ubud. Painters in a nearby village, Batuan, also came under
the influence of the Pita Maha, but retained more of the Classical Kasaman style. Batuan subject matter
turned to everyday life, but still contained many scenes on a single canvas, more subdued coloring than
the Ubud style, and dense, crowded canvases. The heightened activity and creative progress in Ubud and
Batuan was relatively short-lived due the outbreak of World War II and Japan's invasion of Bali's.
Walter Spies was imprisoned and died later in a Japanese bombing of a prisoner boat. Bonnet was
interned in Sulawesi, but returned to Bali in the 50's to help found the Ubud Puri Lukisan museum.
Young Artists Style

After the war another Dutch-born artist, Arie Smit, became influential in Balinese art. Smit had been
working as a topographer for the Dutch army at the outbreak of the war, was captured and interned in
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Thailand, After the war's end Smit became an Indonesian citizen and taught painting in Bandung where
he worked with UNESCO Children's Art program. Relocating to Ubud in 1956, Arie opened his studio to
local children and supplied them with whatever art supplies he could acquire. With his encouragement a
new style of naive art quickly caught on, which can be seen in the work of his first pupil, I Nyoman
Cakra.
The topics of the painting were once again scenes of typical Balinese life, but this time rendered in bright
colors and strong graphic style. The students were encouraged to express themselves freely and many of
the paintings do not reflect colors found in nature, but rather inspired only by the painters imagination.
The Young Artists style experienced widespread development around Ubud, and is a staple of galleries
throughout the region today.
Academic Artist
Acedemic Artists This group of paintings is usually noted by the artist's formal training, both in Indonesia
or abroad. The paintings include a variety of painting techniques and styles, but recieve their inspiration
form Balinese culture or nature, both historical and contemporary. These paintings cover a wide range of
styles from documentary to abstact, and utilize all forms of materials.
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After Dutch painters and draftsmen in the East , an exhibition that was on the floor of the
Rijksmuseum in 1972, Indië framed in the Tropenmuseum was the second major retrospective of
Dutch East Indies painting in a Dutch museum. The intention was to draw attention to the more or
less hidden life that the Indian paintings led in museum depots or on the living room walls of, for the
most part, former Indian guests. The 1972 exhibition had, for some reason, not changed the
invisibility of this painting. But a turnaround had come. About some of the most famous painters,
including Rudolf Bonnet , Walter Spies and Willem Hofkermonographs or extensive articles had
meanwhile been published. The Tropenmuseum then took the initiative to make an inventory of the
Dutch museum holdings of Indian paintings and to hold a large exhibition about this. The largest
collection is in the possession of the Tropenmuseum itself; the rest of the Dutch collection was (and
is) in the National Museum of Ethnology in Leiden, the Wereldmuseum Rotterdam and Museum
Bronbeek .
At https://zeeuwsveilinghuis.nl/wp-content/uploads/2019/02/Catalogus-Indonesian-Art-June-
2015.pdf one can see amazing paintings of the Balinese landscape. A land that has bewitched all who
visited it – not least of all the people
Exhibitions held in Amsterdam over a period of time have showed a selection from four centuries of
painting, of the first oil paintings from the 17th century that were made for or by the Dutch East India
Company , including maritime pieces, portraits of important persons, whether or not accompanied by
their family members, and the very first panoramas and cityscapes of Batavia . For two centuries, the
paintings had a predominantly documentary character.So the romance continues.
In the Romantic period there was interest in the beauty of the landscape, the erupting volcanoes, the
beautiful location of country houses, village views and the ruins of Hindu-Javanese antiquities. The
landscapes by Antoine Payen , the fierce hunting scenes by Raden Saleh and the portraits by Jan
Daniel Beynon are particularly characteristic of Indian painting of the 19th century.
The first half of the 20th century is the period of the so-called 'Beautiful Indies style' with fixed
ingredients: sun, mountains, palm trees, sawahs and village scenes. The nature and culture of the
island of Bali and especially the graceful Balinese dancers are the focus of the aforementioned
painters such as Hofker, Spies and Bonnet, but also of lesser-known artists such as Willem
Dooyewaard , Charles Sayers , Piet Moojen , the Swiss Theo Meier. and the Belgian Adrien-Jean Le
Mayeur de Merprès . Painting had become art pour l'art . At the same time, some modernists such
as Piet Ouborg andDolf Breetvelt . The Japanese occupation of the Indonesian archipelago in World
War II and the independence of Indonesia meant the end of the Dutch painting tradition. This also
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implied the end of the long series of state portraits of the governors-general of the Dutch East Indies,
which began with that of Pieter Both (1610-1614), the first governor in the service of the
VOC. In India framed were some of these portraits from the collection of the Rijksmuseum and the
Tropenmuseum.
The exhibition was accompanied by a book, compiled by four authors, which is as yet the most up-
to-date overview of Dutch East Indies painting. The book contains a complete inventory of the Dutch
East Indies paintings in the Dutch museum collections.
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The Journal of the Indo Nordic author’s Collective, Stockholm, SWEDEN

BALINESE NUDES IN ART

Traditional Kamasan Style

Ubud Style( Color pic on right above)

Young Artists Style

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