VHS203E

ASIAN MODERN ART

TITLE:

The Representation of Wayang Kulit in Indonesian

Modern Art Paintings

GROUP MEMBER’S:

Nurlyana Salwa Binti Abdul Munir 129530

Nurul Najwa Binti Amirudin 129532

LECTURER’S NAME:

Dr. Sarena Abdullah

 THE REPRESENTATION OF WAYANG KULIT IN INDONESIAN

MODERN ART PAINTINGS

Nurlyana Salwa A.Ma, Nurul Najwa Amirudinb

Universiti Sains Malaysia, 11800 Malaysia

awaungu@gmail.com / njwawaa@yahoo.com

Abstract

This paper describes the representation of wayang kulit in Indonesian modern art paintings.
Wayang kulit is a form of traditional theatre in Southeast Asia. In Indonesia, the term wayang
kulit refers not only to the performance of a shadow play, but has also become synonymous
with the hide puppets used to create the shadows. Wayang painting is an integral part of the
Bali’s Hindu-Buddhist faith. It began about a thousand years ago to tell great legends with
moral lessons on the screens, curtains, walls and ceilings of the island’s temples, palaces, and
homes of wealthy patrons. The art is alive today in the temples where it began and in modern
interpretations. It was adaption from a mystical story and perform in theater to show to
audience about the story. The earliest Balinese painters drew their inspiration from the
wayang kulit shadow plays, using two-dimensional figures to depict episodes from the same
religious and historical epics that were played out on the stage. Wayang style pictures are
packed full of people painted in three-quarter profile, with caricature like features and puppet
like poses. As with the wayang puppets, the characters in the paintings are instantly
recognizeble by their facial features and hairstyles and by their clothes and size. The wayang
kulit is being represented as characteristic of folk story and was develop into painting.

Keywords: Introduction, wayang painting, kamsan painting, ketut matra

1.0 INTRODUCTION OF WAYANG KULIT

Wayang Kulit is the traditional theatre which is uses the principle of light and shadow. The
shadows of the statues of the skin comprising mythology of various characters and imaginary
abducted by a puppeteer. The show of wayang kulit often accompanied by the one of
traditional music group which is wind instrument (flute) or stringed instrument (fiddle) .
Basically, the flow of story, the shape of statue still maintain the originality the scenes
Hilarious 'comic relief' that often occurs in the story of a puppet that, it's obvious elements of
local produce in terms of language and also the events depicted. Therefore, the actual puppet
variety (biodiversity) in two stages. Both have an important roles. The term wayang has the
same etymological root as the Javanese word for ‘shadow’. However, the term may also have
another origin connected with ancient traditions of remembering one’s ancestors. A legend
says that the Hindu king Joyoboyo in ordered his artists to make drawings of the stone figures
of his ancestors on palm leaves called lontar. He named the lontar images wayang purwa.
Wayang Kulit is a unique form of theatre employing light and shadow. The puppets are
crafted from buffalo hide and mounted on bamboo sticks. When held up behind a piece of
white cloth, with an electric bulb or an oil lamp as the light source, shadows are cast on the
screen. It plays are invariably based on romantic tales, especially adaptations of the classic
Indian epics, "The Mahabarata" and "The Ramayana". Some of the plays are also based on
local happenings (current issues) or other local secular stories. It is up to the conductor or
"Tok Dalang" to decide his direction. In Indonesia, copies of various parts of the
Mahabharata, such as Adiparwa, Wirataparwa, Bhismaparwa and possibly some other parwa,
are known to have been composed in prose Kawi (Old Javanese) languages since the late
10th century AD. That is during the reign of King Dharmawangsa Teguh (991-1016 AD)
from Kadiri. Because of that nature, this form of prose is also known as the literature of the
parwa. Actually, in the Javanese, they have their own story behind the scene of puppet
shadow. The title of the legend story is Mahabarata and the Ramayana where is from the
Hindu epic story.
.In some ways, the entire story of the Mahabharata is an explanation of how our world, the
world of the Kali Yuga, came into being, and how things got to be as bad as they are. The
Ramayana has its share of suffering and even betrayal, but nothing to match the relentless
hatred and vengeance of the Mahabharata. The culmination of the Mahabharata is the Battle
of Kurukshetra when two bands of brothers, the Pandavas and the Kauravas, the sons of two
brothers and thus cousins to one another, fight each other to death, brutally and cruelly, until
the entire race is almost wiped out
Mahabharata tells the story of the five Pandavas' conflicts with their cousin the hundred
Korawa, regarding the dispute over the rights of the state government of Astina. The peak
was the Bharatayuddha war in the Kurusetra field and the battle lasted for eighteen days.

The enemies of the Pandavas are the Kauravas, who are the sons of Pandu's brother,
Dhritarashtra. Although Dhritarashtra is still alive, he cannot manage to restrain his son
Duryodhana, who bitterly resents the achievements of his cousins, the Pandavas. Duryodhana
arranges for his maternal uncle to challenge Yudhishthira to a game of dice, and Yudhishthira
gambles everything away, even himself. The Pandavas have to go into exile, but when they
return they engage the Kauravas in battle. Krishna fights on the side of the Pandavas, and
serves as Arjuna's charioteer. The famous "Song of the Lord," or Bhagavad-Gita, is actually a
book within the Mahabharata, as the battle of Kurukshetra begins. When Arjuna faces his
cousins on the field of battle, he despairs and sinks down, unable to fight. The Bhagavad-Gita
contains the words that Krishna spoke to Arjuna at that moment. The Pandavas do win the
battle. Duryodhana is killed, and the Kaurava armies are wiped out. But it is hardly a happy
ending. Yudhishthira becomes king, but the world is forever changed by the battle's violence.
Rama is the son of King Daśaratha, but he is also an incarnation of the god Vishnu, born in
human form to do battle with the demon lord Ravana. Ravana had obtained divine protection
against other demons, and even against the gods - but because he scorned the world of
animals and men, he had not asked for protection from them. Therefore, Vishnu incarnated as
a human being in order to put a stop to Ravana. King Daśaratha has three other sons besides
Rama. There is Lakshmana, who is devoted to Rama. There is also Bharata, the son of
Daśaratha's pretty young wife Kaikeyi, and finally there is Śatrughna, who is as devoted to
Bharata as Lakshmana is to Rama.

When Daśaratha grows old, he decides to name Rama as his successor. Queen Kaikeyi,
however, is outraged. She manages to compel Daśaratha to name their son Bharata as his
successor instead and to send Rama into exile in the forest. Rama agrees to go into exile, and
he is accompanied by his wife Sita and his brother Lakshmana. When their exile is nearly
over, Sita is abducted by the evil Ravana who carries her off to Lanka city (on the island of
Sri Lanka). Rama and Lakshmana follow in pursuit, and they are aided by the monkey lord,
Hanuman, who is perfectly devoted to Rama. After many difficulties and dangers, Rama
finally confronts Ravana and defeats him in battle.
2.0 THE TECHNIQUE AND STYLE OF ART PAINTING

The oldest Balinese works in existence date from the 18th century, the traditional art of Bali
has roots in the wayang (shadow puppet theatre) and in the art of the East Javanese Majapahit
kingdom. However, the category of traditional art in Bali today encompasses a lot more than
this narrative painting style. Paradoxically, what is more commonly known as traditional
painting is the art which developed around the villages of Ubud, Batuan and Sanur in the
1930s. The narrative painting associated with Kamasan village is now often referred to as
classical or wayang painting. While Kamasan remains the centre of classical painting, the
style was practised throughout the island and several villages still boast small numbers of
active artists.1

They depict a selection of the narratives used in Kamasan painting including scenes from the
Mahabharata epic, the Buddhist Sutasoma, the tantri or animal fables, the family saga of Pan
and Men Brayut, the plindon earthquake calendar, and the pelintangan showing a
combination of the five- and seven-day Balinese weeks. As the physical gesture is important
in this theatre, so the artists made the emotive brushstroke gesture of painting one of the
hallmarks of Indonesia art.

Particular narratives were related to the functions of individual temples or parts of temples,
such as the story of the black magic witch Calon Arang which is displayed in the pura dalem,
the temple used to perform rituals associated with death. Old paintings are rare because when
not outdoors and susceptible to the effects of tropical weather, paintings folded in storage are
vulnerable to insects which devour the rice paste mixture used to prime the cloths. Once
paintings were damaged beyond repair temple communities would replace them with new
ones.

The old works were intended as a record of the ongoing transformations in artistic practice
but also to contest the idea of the anonymous or unknown artist. Identifying and recording the
names of individual artists was a key element in the collecting project. Despite consultation
with several living artists the producers of many older works remain nameless even though
they can be recognised by their distinctive styles, like the Smaradahana, or Burning of the
God of Love, which is widely regarded as a superb example of Kamasan work dating from
the 1920s.
The high value of old paintings and the cost of commissioning replacements is part of the
reason that most temples around Bali no longer use traditional paintings. Most temples have
replaced them with cheaper and brighter screenprinted satin cloths which one Kamasan artist
reasoned appealed more to a Balinese aesthetic preference for the shiny and new. Temples in
the Kamasan area continue to commission new paintings but this accounts for only part of the
work being produced in the village. The production of souvenir items to service the tourist
trade is also significant resulting in innovations such as smaller paintings in single-scene
formats which make the paintings easier to explain to a foreigner audience. Kamasan artists
also receive commissions from all over Bali to produce large-scale painted panels on cloth for
display in hotel lobbies, university campuses, government offices and private residences,
many of which rival the painted ceilings of the Kerta Gosa in grandeur and scale.

The earliest Balinese painting is referred to wayang style, after the sacred shadow puppet
theatre wayang kulit. Wayang style is adapted in contemporary art because it provides a
narrative framework for discussions of contemporary politics and social issues. This painting
style is easily identified by its flat figures and its use of the characters and iconography of the
wayang puppet theatre, with its themes taken from the great Hindu epics Mahabarata and the
Ramayana. Wayang painting flourished in almost all regions of Bali, mainly under the
patronage of the many small royal courts. It decorated palaces and temples, and was often
used in religious ritual. Wayang painted dates from at least the 16th century, when the island
was largely ruled by the kingdom of Klungkung. The seat of wayang painting then was in the
village of Kamasan, not far from the royal center of Klungkung, and today Kamasan still
maintains the tradition of wayang painting. It is regarded as classical Balinese painting, with
a very clear technique and strong stylistic character.

In the early 20th century, Balinese painting came under the influence of Western art,
particularly by way of two European artists living in Bali: Walter Spies from Germany and
Rudolf Bonnet from the Netherlands. Together with Tjokorda Gde Agung Sukawati (a
member of the leading noble family of Ubud) and a number of local artists such as I Gusti
Nyoman Lempad, they established an association of artists called Pita Maha, with a view to
maintaining quality and assisting in the sale of artworks to visiting foreigners. The content of
painting now focused on scenes from daily life, such as temples ceremonies and ritual
performances, landscapes and scenes from the rice fields, cremation rituals, and market
scenes. Colors were no longer restricted to those obtain from natural substances; now they
included acrylics and oil paint.
The narrative depicted on these large cloths is customised to suit both the display context and
the person commissioning the work. Nyoman Mandra (1946 - ), the most revered living artist
in Kamasan, oversees the most prestigious commissions by employing an extended network
of family and former students. The largest works may have up to a dozen people, mainly
women, working on them at any time. While women are widely recognised for their work as
colourists, in a painting process best described as communal and broken down into stages,
defining their contribution as a collective can obscure the spectrum of their practice. Several
prominent female artists work in Kamasan and produce their own work with little or no
involvement of male family members.

________

1. Adrian Vickers, Bali, a paradise created, Penguin, Ringwood, Victoria, 1989.

3.0 THE ELEMENTS AND CHARACTER IN WAYANG KULIT

Mangku Muriati (1966) makes thought provoking statements about contemporary Balinese
life by exploring the unchartered territory of traditional narratives. While Balinese literature
and performing arts are an ongoing source of inspiration, Muriati is a huge fan of Indian films
starring actor Amitabh Bachchan and the martial arts of Jackie Chan. Muriati’s work as a
temple priest is an important consideration in the painting Kanda Mpat, the four ‘siblings’
born with each person and present at birth in the placenta, amniotic fluid, blood and navel
cord. Throughout a person’s life they serve as protectors and guardians but they can also
bring harm if they are not given the appropriate offerings in daily life and at important rites of
passage. In the painting they are depicted in the manifestations they adopt outside the human
body including the demon and animal forms which correlate with the cardinal directions.2

Although the orientations of the gods and their associated directions and weapons are
common in Kamasan ceiling paintings, this is a novel version informed by the religious texts
Muriati was required to study before her consecration as a temple priest.

These guardians are important in Muriati’s life given her decision to carry on the legacy of
her late father, Mangku Mura, as both artist and temple priest, both contested roles for a
woman within the extended family and village environment. This question of destiny is
important to Muriati and she returns to it in other works like Bhavagad Gita which depicts a
scene from the Mahabharata as Arjuna expresses his misgivings about the wisdom of
engaging in war with his cousins and is advised by Kresna in his divine form as the god
Wisnu.

_____

2. Thomas L. Cooper, Sacred Painting in Bali: tradition in transition, Orchid Press, Bangkok, 2005.
Although the art of Kamasan village remains firmly and proudly located within Hindu
Balinese tradition its circulation as fine art and as part of the island’s tourist trade has
expanded the potential for artists to explore new themes and ways of working. While this
reflects the realities of contemporary Bali it has also ensured that Balinese art history
continues to espouse the names of foreign artists associated with the island. The fact that
foreigners are so synonymous with the birth of modern art in Bali has meant that its own
classical painting tradition is often overlooked as expatriates take centre-stage not only in
written accounts of Balinese art but in collections and exhibitions of Balinese art in Indonesia
and around the world. Australia is fortunate to have an exceptional collection which
challenges this view of the island’s art history and tells a different story about exchange in
visual art.

Wayang kulit style is characterised by figures shown as flattened forms, their faces in profile,
with broad shoulders, long thin arms and necks, and a stock repertoire of facial shapes,
hairstyles, costume, jewellery and colouring. They illustrate the wayang kulit style of
Indonesian puppet theatre and painting, which is seen particularly in Java and Bali. The term
wayang can refer to the many varieties of Indonesian puppet theatre, to the puppets
themselves, and to the painting style incorporating wayang figures. The major forms of
Javanese painting prior to the twentieth century were intimately linked to wayang kulit and
the closely related theatrical forms of wayang golek (rod puppet theatre), wayang beber
(scroll theatre), and topeng (masked dance-drama). The same painters providing
polychromatic painting (sunggingan) for shadow puppets also were responsible for painting
rod puppets, masks, banners {ider-ider), and weaponry display racks. These painters also
provided wayang style illustrations for literary manuscripts with mythological and legendary
themes. In the late nineteenth- and early twentieth-centuries, many of these traditional
painters turned to the production of reverse paintings on glass. Painters in premodern Java
were essentially rural artists who manufactured their own paints from natural ingredients and
fashioned their own brushes from available materials. 3 The findings of E.W. Maurenbrecher
on the painting of wayang kulit in Cirebon.

In wayang theatre, painting and dance characters are clearly distinguished with respect to
personality type. Refined characters who play gods, nobles and heroes are referred to in
Javanese as alus, and are contrasted with evil, demonic or wild characters who are called kras
(rough) or kasar (coarse). Each type has indicative facial features, colouration and costume.
Those of noble character are indicated by slim physique and refined features, in contrast to
demons who are portrayed with fangs; round, protrudingeyes; bulbous noses and corpulent
bodies. Some characters, who are wild and fierce but also possess a noble side to their
character, may at first appear as kasar but identified as noble by their costume and
colouration.

They also are aware of the relative positions for arraying figures on the split level banana
dual logs that serves as a puppet stage. This is known as tanceban or "planting" of puppets.
Puppeteering is seasonal work, and during the fasting month and the long months of the rainy
season, puppeteers spend much of their time repairing, painting, and repainting their own
puppets. Some schools of wayang insist that it is pumali (taboo) for puppeteers to carve
puppets, and that a puppeteer who takes up carving will no longer be successful as a
performer.
________

3. Made Arya Kencana, ‘Dozens of Stolen Artifacts Recovered in Bali,The Jakarta Globe, 8 September 2010.

The same pumali does not apply to painting. Many puppeteers order their puppets from a
puppet carver unpainted. This allows them to inspect the quality of hide, and ascertain that a
puppet is manufactured from a single piece of material, without sopakan (false parts added
on). The puppeteer will then paint the puppet himself, or farm out this work to an associate,
typically a family member. Many puppeteers take great pleasure in painting puppets to
conform to their own personal tastes in color and detail. Painting allows for intense
concentration on the form of a puppet; it is a way to gain intimate familiarity with the
physical form of a puppet as well as a type of mystical exercise. One often sees half-painted
puppets hanging upside-down on the walls of puppeteer houses, and it is very common for
visitors to a puppeteer's house to interrupt the painting puppeteer at work.

Most of wayang kulit, many folks put elements or characters of Mahabharata because it is the
most epic in character of wayang kulit puppets. This is because, the Mahabharata tells the
story of two sets of paternal first cousins which is the five sons of the deceased king Pandu
(the five Pandavas and the one hundred sons of blind King Dhritarashtra who became bitter
rivals, and opposed each other in war for possession of the ancestral Bharata kingdom with its
capital in the "City of the Elephants," Hastinapura, on the Ganga river in north central India.
What is dramatically interesting within this simple opposition is the large number of
individual agendas the many characters pursue, and the numerous personal conflicts, ethical
puzzles, subplots, and plot twists that give the story a strikingly powerful development.

Ramayana and Mahabharata reached Java along the trade routes by the first centuries C.E.
and possibly much earlier. Naturally, some of the Mahabharata narratives in Indonesia may
be older than the Indian Mahabharata in its present corpus, which was still evolving as late as
4th Century A.D. There is thus, no way turning away from the Indonesian version, some parts
of which may even be closer to Vyasa’s ‘original‘. Most scholars now agree that Wayang
made its entry in Javanese culture at the latest during the rule of King Sri Maha Panggung
(Raden Jaka Pakukuhan), in the 4th century. Furthermore it was developed by Airlangga, one
of the great kings in East Java in the 11th century.
4.0 ARTIST (KETUT MADRA – MASTER WAYANG PAINTER)

Ketut Madra has devoted his life to the study, preservation, and practice of Bali’s rich
cultural arts. Primarily as a painter, but also as a dancer, musician, and community leader,
Madra is steeped in the stories and legends at the center of the island’s culture and
community. His unique ability to convey action and emotion in a rich and imaginative
composition brings the traditional to life for modern audiences, Western and Balinese alike.

Originally from Pengosekan, a small community near Ubud, Madra moved to nearby Peliatan
as a young man in the late 1950s to work as a painter for the art dealer Wayan Gedah. At that
time he also began studying with Tjokorda Oka Gambir, and learned the techniques and
conventions of traditional wayang painting, including the specific colors, iconography, and
costume for scores of characters.

Madra started painting exclusively wayang narratives in the early 1960s, and soon developed
a reputation as a skillful and original artist. He works with deliberation, and sells work
directly from his studio to people who find him, usually through word-of-mouth.
Occasionally, trusted local dealers with galleries catering to serious collectors also buy his
work.

In 1974, Madra’s work was shown in international exhibitions in the UK and the USA for the
first time. In the same year he completed the first bungalow of what would become the Ketut
Madra Homestay on his property in Peliatan. Over the next 15 years, he gradually expanded
the accommodations for students, travelers, musicians, and artists interested in “a quiet place
to learn about Bali.” The homestay has been a central feature in the life of Madra and his
family, and has introduced three generations of visitors to his work and to traditional Balinese
arts and culture.

At the age of 41, having focused up to that point on work and the homestay, Madra needed
something more. Nyoman Kakul, a preeminent dancer of Batuan village who admired
Madra’s understanding of the stories told in Balinese dance drama, urged him to learn to
perform. More than 30 years later than most Balinese dancers take their first lessons, Madra
learned the role of topeng keras, the rough prime minister in the king’s court. He continues to
dance more than 30 years later, playing a variety of roles for which he is highly regarded.

Madra also learned as an adult to play the rebab, the two-stringed bowed lute in
the gamelan ensemble. He dances and plays regularly with the Tirta Sari gamelan group in
Peliatan. Dance, Madra says, is a near perfect complement to his life as a painter. Performing
in stories he had only watched and painted brings new insight to character and deeper
understanding of the spiritual and devotional nature of both kinds of work.

Hanoman and
Surya,

Siwa, Giri Putri and Gana / Tenung Gana,

5.0 CONCLUSION

In conclusion, Wayang painting the original illustrated art of Bali, takes its name from the
shadow puppet theatre. The wayang kulit deliver their characters and iconography to tell our
myths and legends. Until the 1930s, the purpose of almost all Balinese painting was to depict
these stories in our temples and palaces. These painted narratives of Java and Bali, like the
puppet theatere, carry lessons about the behavior of mythological beings and humankind. The
wayang painting is the alternative to represent the story about their own culture and late
history. Other than that, it also focus on the characters of puppets, the style and movements.
Even though, it is forgotten from our community, but it is still live in people who love the
traditional story. It also can represent in the wayang painting which is gave to people who
realize about the legend history never ends.
6.0 REFERENCE

[1] Anderson, Benedict, "The Last Picture Show : Wayang Bèbèr". In Jean Taylor et al.,
eds., Conference on Modern Indonesian Literature. Madison : University of
Wisconsin, Center for Southeast Asian Studies, 1974, pp. 33-81.

[2] Basari, Demon Abduction : A Wayang Ritual Drama from West Java, trans. Matthew
Isaac Cohen. Jakarta : Lontar, 1998.

[3] Fischer, Joseph, "The Traditional Sources of Modern Indonesian Art". In Joseph
Fischer, éd., Modern Indonesian Art. Jakarta and New York : Panitian Pameran KIAS
and Festival of Indonesia, 1990, pp. 14-41.

[4] Fischer, Joseph. The Folk Art of Java. Singapore : Oxford University Press, 1994.

[5] Wiyoso Yudoseputro and M. Sulebar Soekarman, eds. Rupa Wayang dalam Seni
Rupa Kontemporer Indonesia. Jakarta : Senawangi, 1993.

[6] Lee Koon Choy. Indonesia Between Myth and Reality. Nile & Mackenzie Ltd-London
(1976)

[7] Gralapp, Leland W. Balinese Painting and Wayang Tradition. Artibus Asia
Publishers, Ascona, Switzerland (1967)