People around the world so admired the Balinese paintings, there are many places to buy beautiful paintings in Bali. Along the street in Kuta, Legian and Seminyak, Sanur, Nusa Dua, on Sukawati Art Market, on Guwang Art Market, or on tour destination such as Goa Gajah and Tanah Lot.
But if you are not someone who simply pursue a cheaply painting , but would like to collect the paintings that have a higher artistic value with good quality, then you should spend some time to hunt painting in various painting galleries in the Batuan village , Lod Tunduh, Pengosekan, Peliatan and Ubud. In the painting galleries you can see the artworks of the most talented Balinese painters with various painting style in Bali, either Kamasan Classic Style, Batuan Classic Style, Ubud Traditional Style, Pengosekan Traditional Style, or Young Naive Style Artist, Modern style, and the works of western artists or other painters Indonesia are taking the theme of Balinese life.
The history of Bali's painting was started long time ago, before the Balinese painting style influenced by western style brought by Walter Spies in 1920s. Klungkung is the right place to start exploring because in the 15th century Bali was in the golden age under empire of Gelgel Kingdom - Klungkung.
At the time of the Gelgel Kingdom, Balinese painting is known as a non commercial painting. There is only the painting as a sacred art, because simply used as decoration in places of show, in the palaces of nobles and temple, either as Umbul-Umbul, Kober, Langse and Ider-Ider. The artists do not sell his painting to the general public, but his family is guaranteed by the king and the nobles who gave him a permanent job to decorate various palaces and temples they built. Many villager wok as Gelgel Kingdom painter and the famous one is Kamasan village located in the southern city of Klungkung Semarapura, almost the entire population living as a painter since the days of royal past until now.
Traditional theme painting
Kamasan style of painting is also called Kamasan Painting Classical Style because this painting style originated from the golden age of ancient Bali kingdom is not influenced by European or other outside. According to I Made Kanta (1977), Kamasan style is a continuation of the tradition of painting wong-wongan (humans with the environment) in the pre-history up to the entry of Hinduism in Bali. Kamasan painting style contain many elements of art and philosophical meanings taken from the Ramayana and Mahabratha. Other characteristic of Kamasan style is come from the painting's colors which is are usually taken from the natural color, used crushed bones to white color, used charcoal to black, used Taum grass to blue, for the red color used the Babakan Sunti wood, whereas for the yellow color taken from Pecan oil, which then mixed with the traditioanl adhesive (called Ancur) that attaches to the canvas. Classical Kamasan painting style using only two dimensions, length and width, there is no perspective that is much closer is not visible, while the objects are painted to look like puppets, flat with no point of view (perspective) or depth.
The Batuan Classical painting is very similar to the Kamasan Classical Style, the difference is the media and colors used to painting. Batuan Style Classical paintings are usually used paper as canvas for drawing media, while black color Chinese ink is used for coloring to give contrast impressions of light and dark. Now beside Chinese ink used, the painters also use different colors but the dominant color is still the black Chinese ink. Another feature of this painting is put the details up to the smallest detail that makes it seem very complicated. Batuan Classical Style paintings theme of painting mostly about Balinese popular stories or taken from epic of Ramayana or Mahabratha, so to understand well the paintings, you must have proper knowledge on Balinese popular stories or stories from Ramayana and Mahabharata epic poems. However, young artists, paint lots of painting describing up to date or non traditional themes such as the tourists surfing on Balinese beaches and others.
After Bali was colonized by the Dutch in 1908, the Western scientists and artists flocked to the Bali be invited by the King of Ubud Cokorda Sukawati, among them are musicians, choreographers, writers and painters. King of Ubud is invited western artists he knew to come and settle in Ubud. Some of them were granted lands to build a studio and home, such as Walter Spies, painter and musician artist from Germany who arrived in 1920, built his home (knowed as Hotel Campuhan now). Miguel and Rosa Covarrubias from Mexico, came and lived in Bali since 1930. They wrote the book The Island of Bali which is still as reference to all the books on the island of Bali. Rudolf Bonnet and Adrian Le Mayeur from Belgium came to join later. In 1936 they founded the Pita Maha artist organization with I Gusti Nyoman Lempad, I Sobrat and I Tegalan. The purpose of this organization is to improve the quality artworks of the artists (there are 100 members at that time) and help sell their artworks to the art-lovers in the west. More western artists come to Bali: Theo Meier from Switzerland, anthropologist Jane Belo from the United States, musician Colin McPhee in collaboration with Anak Agung Gede Mandra from Peliatan in doing new experiments in music. Hans Snell left the Dutch army, married Siti, and settled in Ubud. Similarly, Antonio Blanco, a painter from Catalunya, Spain-born in the Philippines, who married his model, Ni Ronji, and then settled in Ubud.
The arrivals of those Western artists influenced the style of painting that emerged since 1930 until now, which was then known as Ubud Traditional Style and Traditional Style Pengosekan. The theme has touched ordinary people or the events of daily life, such as the atmosphere in a village market, a religious ceremony in the temple, the work of farmers in the fields, and others. The colors used are modern colors manufactured with a variety of colors. The resulting painting is a painting that has been taking into account the three-dimensional perspective. The famous painters in Ubud Traditional styles include Anak Agung Made Sobrat dan I Dewa Nyoman Batuan.
In the 1950s, a Dutch painter, Arie Smith, began to take the children of farmers from the village of Penestanan to paint after they returned from working in the fields. They are free to paint according to their own ideas using the colors they like. Their artworks became known as the style of Young Artists or Naive Paintings, with typical imagination of children who are innocent, meet a lot of emphasis on the image area without depth or perspective, with contrasting colors and bold. The characters of whom I Chakra and I Ketut Soki.
Now there is also the Indonesian Arts Institute in Yogyakarta and Denpasar so much intellect graduated painters who produce a lot of new styles of painting, namely Modern or Contemporary style, be it a stream of Realists, Surrealists, Impressionists, and others. Many still carry the traditional theme of painted but painted in modern style, such as I Nyoman Gunarsa a painter from Klungkung.
I Nyoman Gunarsa's Artwork
Along with the advancement of the art world, this time not only paintings painted on canvas, but the Balinese painters have painted in various media, such as ceramics, shell eggs, and lately the most interesting is the painting on textile fabrics, including silk painting on cloth, fabric cotton, chiffon, velvet fabric. Balinese artists teamed up with Fashion Designer to collaborate between art and fashion. A new perspective in the arts and fashion. Now has many products produced art-fashion (Hand Painted Clothes), like the kebaya painting, painting a dress, shirt painting, and painting clothes.
Hand Painted T-shirt, Egg, and Traditional dress
Source: Bali Painting History
