Questions:
There will be a series of visiting artist lectures over the semester (details will come via the Learning Portal and your PPD lecturer). For the purpose of this journal entry, you will have to attend the visiting artist lecture for your specialism, and write a short report:
i. Write down the visiting artist’s name.
ii. Describe his/ her work, including creative philosophy/ objectives.
iii. Highlight any three aspects of the artist’s work that you find notable (these can be ideas that are inspiring or encouraging, or questions you might still have).
Answer:
Mas Pirngadie Landscape with Paddy Filed and Mountain
Oil on canvas
Mas Pirngadie’s painting is undoubtedly related to the theme of food. The farthest area towards the horizon is a mountain and some trees. Below is a large field of rice, a homestead, and a person riding on a bull lead by another person. According to Cox (2015), some of these paintings were inspired by the Dutch officials as a way of remembering the time they spent in their colony. The rice fields proximity to the mountain and the color used to paint the sky depict a favorable climate. Additionally, the presence of the paddy fields also communicates the economic activity of the residents which is farming and animal rearing. Moreover, the brown coloring on the rice leaves and banana leaves signify the tropical heat and the readiness for harvesting. In general, the landscape images and figures presented by Pirngadie are not mere objects but tools for communicating about the Indonesian social life and culture.
Raden Sale (b.1811 Indonesia: d, 1880, Indonesia) Javanese Temple in Ruins
Raden Sale’s Javanese Temple in Ruins appears on the medium of oil on canvas mounted on fiberboard. It was presented as a gift to Mrs. Sally Burbank Swart. Just the name suggests Javanese Temple in Ruins features a ruined temple appearing in one of the many landscapes in Java. Therefore, the painting has a religious connotation. First, the landscape on which the temple stands on appears deserted. For example, there are visible disarranged rocks signifying the incompleteness of the temple or destruction. At the top of the temples appear some growing weeds showing that the temple was no longer in use. Similarly, Sale paints a few persons in groups of two and three but are a distance away from the temple. Saleh may have featured the religious polarization that swept through Java following the revival of Islam and other social reforms (Ricklefs, 2008).
References
Cox, M. J. (2015). The Javanese self in portraiture from 1880-1955.
Ricklefs, M. C. (2008). Religious Reform & Polarization in Java. Isim Review, 21, 2.
