The estimable Peacay of BibliOdyssey has posted a series of images of Filipino men and women in typical costumes. Most of the images, like this one, simply called “Old Woman,” are taken from a 1941 an 1841 book available online from the New York Public Library. While the images have a bit of the whiff of colonialism and the specimen book, they are still fascinating historical documents, not least as examples of the watercolor arts of the nineteenth-century.
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While we’re on the subject of Indonesian ritual, here is an image of a Kechak dance from www.viajar24h.com’ s photostream.
This dance tells stories from the Ramayana myth. One of its features is a large chorus of young men, said to represent a forest full of monkeys. The men provide the music for the performance by making percussive sounds.
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Some posts related to Southeast Asia:
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According to legend, Ken Arok, founder of the 13th-century Hindu-Buddhist Singosari kingdom, won his throne through a series of murders accomplished with a wavy dagger called a kris. Ken Arok’s dagger was powerful but it was also cursed, and ultimately it also killed its owner.
In Indonesian trance rituals, celebrants in trance states may stab themselves with krises. (Krises are also found inMalaysia, Brunei, Southern Thailand and the southern Philippines.) I think the stabbing is mostly symbolic, as several observers report they result in little or no blood.
In 2005, UNESCO designated the kris a Masterpiece of the Oral and Intangible Heritage of Humanity. But not everyone shares this appreciation of the ritual object. A Southeast Asian Archaeology Newsblog reports:
According to Tony Junus Kartiko Adinegoro, head of Panji Nusantara, an organization of kris aficionados, … widespread irrational beliefs negatively impact the ability to preserve the kris as a cultural artifact.
“The preservation of kris in Indonesia is neglected because religious leaders do not understand the underlying philosophy of the kris.”
Believing kris’ have mystical powers and supernatural beings living inside them has caused Islamic leaders to tell people to stay away from them, Tony said.
“The cultural artifacts are thrown into the sea or destroyed, which saddens us.”
Krises are both artefacts of cultural heritage and works of art. They should always be treated with respect.
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Some posts related to Southeast Asia:
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Kris ritual image is courtesy elbisreverri’s photostream.
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This image of Borobudur in Magelang, Central Java, Indonesia. is from shapeshift’s photostream.
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Some posts related to Southeast Asia:
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A couple of people were asking for more images of Indonesian jester puppets. Here’s another one from the Asian Art Museum (where the puppets are difficult to photograph because they are displayed in very low light). His name is Togog.
Earlier I posted an image of the jester Semar. There is more information about Indonesian clown puppets at the Museum of Folly.
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The jester Togog, ca. 1800-1900. Ondonesia; Bandung, West Java. Wood cloth, and mixed media. Asian Art Museum; From the Mimi and John Herbert Collection, F2000.85.33.
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Many people are familiar with the shadow puppets that are a popular court art of central Java. Rod puppets (wayang golek) are a puppet form that is popular among nonartistocratic audience in western Java and the northern coast of central Java. The puppets perform tales from the Ramayana and Mahabharata, as well as other Hindu and Islamic texts.
This figure is Semar, a jester. Jesters are a popular element of rod puppet performances. This puppet is part of a large collection at the Asian Art Museum in San Francisco. The is more information about Indonesian rod pupet jesters at the Museum of Folly (and some more images).
The jester Semar, ca. 1800-1900. Ondonesia; Bandung, West Java. Wood cloth, and mixed media. Asian Art Museum; From the Mimi and John Herbert Collection, F2000.85.29.
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Lately I’ve been thinking a bit about Bali, so let’s remain there for a while. This fellow comes to us from
Beat’s photostream.
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The other day I commented on Deb Clearwaters’s new blog on Bali. Subsequently, I found this collection of paintings by the Russian-born German painter Walter Spies. Spies, who was born in 1895, moved to Bali in 1927. His painting swings between mannerist and expressionist tendencies, but often with overtones of the primitivism of someone like Dounier Rousseau. With decent connections to the international art community, Spies helped to popularize the notion of Bali as an idyllic and exotic Shangri-La. This painting dates from 1929.
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Deborah Clearwaters has begun a blog that will present “musings about the Balinese arts of music, dance, sculpture, painting, and the ephemeral arts of offering making.” This is sure to be a good resource for anyone interested in this topic. Visit Bali Art Blog here.
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The Singapore Art Museum (SAM) and Yayasan YDY Nusantara of Indonesia have announced a partnership for research and programming at a new facility to be called the New Contemporary Art Centre (NCAC) located in Songzhuang, Beijing (23 km east of the city, not far from the Beijing international airport). Art critic Li Xianting (who coined the terms Cynical Realism and Political Pop) will chair the NCAC’s academic center. The facility will open late in 2008.
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This image is said to represent costumes of the Tai people of Burma, according to A Hand Painted Manuscript, in Color, of the Kaw, Lahu, Kwi, En, Ahko, Hpin, Tai-Loi, Yang Hsek, Palawng, Kachin, Wa Lu, Lem, Tai-no, Lisaw, Hkun and Tai tribes. Hand drawn, hand colored ethnographic manuscript showing people from various ethnic groups in Burma at their daily chores and in their native costume, ca. 1900. It has been slightly cleaned by BibliOdyssey, from which I have taken it; on that site several more examples are presented.
The manuscript comes from the South East Asia Digital Library at the Northern Illinois University Libraries, Special Collections. The paintings are charming in themselves, and also provide a valuable ethnological record.
BibliOdyssey notes “The 60th anniversary since Burma achieved independence from Britain passed by on 4 January 2008. There doesn’t seem to be a great deal to celebrate.”
A Reuters story by Tan Ee Lyn reports on an article published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. According to the report, an international team of scientists performed X-ray spectrometer analysis of 144 jade ornaments in museums in southeast Asia. The jades were thought to date from 3000 BCE to 500 CE. The analysis determined that at least 116 of the jades were made from stone that originated in Fengtian in eastern Taiwan. Fengtian jade is typically a translucent green mottled with dark spots.
The article quotes lead researcher Hung Hsiao-chun, who noted that one of the Fengtian jades found in the Philippines dates to 2000 BCE:
There was a very huge workshop in Fengtian, dating back to 3,000 BC. Before, researchers thought all the jade in the Philippines was from China or Vietnam. With our analysis … we found that most of the ornamental jade in the Philippines was from Taiwan…. Their seafaring methods must have been very superior, even back then.
Shown is an ancient Fengtian nephrite earring unearthed in the Philippines. The image is from ABC News in Science, where the source is listed as PNAS/Yoshiyuki Iizuka.
Yestersay I attended a lecture by Natasha Reichle, the Asian Art Museum’s associate curator of southeast Asian art, on the subject of this beautiful 13th-century stone sculpture from Singhasari, East Java. Prajnaparamita is a term meaning wisdom or learning, one might almost say scholarship. The goddess is the embodiment of of transcendental wisdom.
The sculpture is nearly symmetrical, except for the lotus at the right in the image, which holds a book of sutras, and the hands in the center, which are in the form of the gesture of “wheel-turning,” that is, the turning of the wheel of the dharma, representing the Buddha’s teachings.
Most Javanese view the sculpture as a representation not of Prajnaparamita but of Ken Dedes, the beautiful woman who gave birth to the fateful Singhasari (1222–1292) and Majapahit (1293–1500) dynasties.
This painting by Anupong Chanthorn (sorry I haven’t been able to find a higher-resolution image) has caused quite a stir in Thailand. Entitled Bhikku Sandan Ka (Monks with Traits of a Crow), it suggests immoral behavior (avarice, it would seem) among some of Thailand’s Buddhist monks. The title comes from a phrase attributed to the Buddha to describe a kind of immorality.
When the painting was awarded a prize and an annual art exhibition in Bangkok, some monks staged a protest. Led by Satian Wibhroma, a member of a Buddhist group known as the People’s Network to Protect the Nation, Religion and the Monarchy, they accused the painter of insulting Thai monks. They asked Silpakorn University to revoke the prizes awarded to Anupong, which the university refused. The story is told in Asia Times Online.
An editorial in Thailand’s The Nation asserts that
People who consider themselves good Buddhists, who really care about their religion, should thank artist Anupong Chanthorn for creating a pair of award-winning paintings that honestly reflect the precipitous decline of Buddhism in this country.
Buddhist temples used to be centres of learning, and monks were the guardians of our cultural heritage, but many temples have turned into dens of iniquity. The failure to reform Buddhism and keep it up to date with the drastic social and economic changes has not only resulted in the religion’s diminished influence as a force for good but also contributed to corruption and social decay. Thai society needs more artists and lay Buddhists like Anupong, who care enough about Buddhism to criticise, to satirise, to put pressure on the monastic order to reform. These people deserve praise, not condemnation.
AP released this great photo of performers watching the opening ceremony of the 5th Indonesia Art Festival in Sanur, Bali, Indonesia.
