Tourists who want to discover more about Bali’s natural environment, its history, culture and art wild find a visit to one of the island’s museums greatly rewarding.
Many will be surprised to know that Bali has around 20 official museum with more in preparation, usually to exhibit the property of royal families or the work of master craftsmen and artists.
Bali’s museums fall into two broad categories they are private and government. The Public museums tend to focus on the natural history, archaeology and history and as well as on Bali’s stunning achievements in the arts. Private museum tend to focus almost exclusively on art, including painting, stone and wood carving, leather carving and gold, silver and other metal working.
Most art museums are concentrated in the area of Ubud, Bali’s center of fine art and wood carving and a major museum of classical art is located at Klungkung in east Bali. The largest government museum and the first in Bali, established as early as 1910, is located at Denpasar and there are archaeological museums at Bedulu near Ubud and at Gilimanuk on the west Bali coast. At the Monument to the People’s Struggle in Denpasar dioramas provide a fascinating timeline of Bali’s development from prehistory to date, including Indonesia’s struggle for independence against its Dutch colonists.
There is a little doubt that Bali has been inhabited for thousands of years and finds displayed at Denpasar, Bedulu and Gilimanuk to some extent reflect this long prehistory.
There are many ancient sites along the Petanu and Pakerisan Rivers between Tampaksiring and the coast, passing through Ubud and Gianyar and the Bedulu archaeology museum is located within this fascinating area with its numerous archaeological finds, graves, temples and tombs.
Primitive art from all around Indonesia can be found at the Putrawan Museum of Tribal Art at Alam Puri Villa.
Buddhism and Hinduism arrived in Bali from India about 2.000 years ago and quickly provide a foundation for temple art.
For centuries Bali was under the influence of neighboring Java but the first Balinese monarchs appear about 1.200 years ago in the 8th century with their capital at Suwecapura and art characterized the architecture of noble or regal families and art embraced religious and secular subjects.
Temple and wealthy palaces and homes required stone masons, wood carvers and carpenters, smiths and metal workers, weavers, musicians and dancers. Whole hamlets were similar to today’s concentrations at art villages throughout Bali. Their descendants have developed fine art and commercial carving on a large scale as well as a massive handicrafts industry probably unique in the world. Art is to Bali what lights is today and many of the island’s museums trace this artistic development.
In 1343 the Javanese Kingdom of Majapahit invaded Bali founding what Balinese like to call the island’s classical period. About a decade later the Kingdom of Gelgel was established near Klungkung and for the next two centuries occupied itself with laying the foundation of modern Bali, including the island’s version of Hinduism. In the 17th century the Kingdom re-established itself at Klungkung, today’s Semarapura.
Nyoman Gunarsa’s Museum of Classical Painting at Klungkung houses a unique collection of temple and palace paintings and carvings from temple and palace paintings and carvings from classical times and indeed is the inspiration for his own contemporary art.
Most paintings are based on the style of Wayang Puppetry and are rooted in the great Indian epics of the Mahabharata and the Ramayana. Images from these stories came to be used as key elements in the architecture of wealthy homes.
The craftsmen and artisans of the royal courts included metal workers, gold and silver smiths and the work of one of Indonesia’s leading modernist jewelry designers, Runi Palar, displayed at the Runa Museum and Gallery at Lottunduh, near Ubud, is consistent with this rich past. The world famous designs of Desak Nyoman Suarti, featured in the galleries section of this publication, also reflect this tradition of innovative craftsmanship today centered on the village of Celuk.
Bali’s private museums specialize preponderantly in art, especially painting. Virtually all of these museums display examples of classical art from earliest times and virtually all, in different ways, trace the history of fine art in Bali.
Puri Lukisan or Painting Palace in Ubud was the first fine art museum to be established in Bali in 1956. It came about as a result of a collaboration between foreign artist Rudolf Bonnet and Price Gde Agung Sukawati from the royal palace of Ubud.
With varying emphasis, Ubud’s fine art museum tell the story of painting and carving in Bali from ancient times to date, especially The Neka Art Museum, the Agung Rai Museum of Art and Museum Rudana. The Blanco Renaissance Museum displays the artistic work of the late Antonio Blanco and his son Mario Blanco, inspired by their lives in Bali.
An important milestone for the development of art in Bali was the arrival of foreigners in the early 20th century bringing with them new artistic materials and concepts which did not fail to influence local art.
Balinese artist had been changing and developing long before the arrival of foreigners, as it to be expected from artists, but there can be little doubt that the opportunities presented by tourism, combined with the example of foreign artists in their midst, made at least some contribution to artistic styles and directions.
Among the foreigners taking up residence in Bali at this time, Rudolf Bonnet and Walter Spies are deemed the most import but there was a succession of foreign artist in Bali during the inter-war years and it is from their arrival, and with them the beginnings of modern tourism, that art in Bali moved firmly out of the temple and palace and into the market place.
An organization established in 1936 called Pita Maha (Spies and Bonnet where among the founders) was set up specifically to market Balinese art within the Netherlands East Indies and around the world while at the same time monitoring and protecting standards.
Art included not only painting but wood carving and stone sculpture. Wood carving was centered on Nyuh Kuning of Ubud, and the work of two master carvers, Ida Bagus Tilem and Wayan Pendet can be seen at museum and gallery. A stone carving were and is centered on the village of Batubulan, south of Ubud.
During the inner-war years traditional painters intensified their experiments and several different styles and schools emerged inUbud, Batuan and Sanur-Denpasar. Around Ubud different villages produced, their own styles, notably Pengosekan. In the 1960s’ influenced by Arie Smith, the young artists style appeared, principally at Penestanan.
Today, under circumstances where most artists attend art institute’s and are exposed to global techniques and concepts, painting in Bali ranges from copies of the classical and traditional to original avant garde and abstract, developments also mirrored in good wood carving. One of Bali’s original painters, I Gusti Ngurah Gede Pemecutan has opened his own museum at Denpasar, Museum Lukisan Sidik Jari.
The creations of Bali’s artistic maestros claim high prices on the island and beyond but genuine antiques are not so plentiful and are often not more than one or two hundred years old. Visitors to Bali will see signs advertising the sale of antiques but many of these are reproductions and only a handful of dealers handle originals from long ago. At the same time there are a number of galleries mirroring the collections at museums with paintings and carvings by maestros for sale and some are featured at the rear of this publication. Balinese are proud of their island home and museums reflect this deep seated cultural pride. Local people clearly enjoy foreigners viewing their world and its past at its museums.
Wet rice farming has been a major element in the lives of the Balinese and Subak Museum at Tabanan is fascinating for the insights it gives into rice cultivation and the relationship with Hinduism.
Most of the museums stage periodic exhibitions and many stage traditional music and dances. A few offer classes in such activities; as dancing, music, painting and wood carving.
There are in essence many Bali’s with many varied attractions but for those who want to tread the road which has resulted in Modern Bali the museums are definitely the place to go.
Before or after such a visit, it is also worth entering a book shop, either in the museums themselves or outside, because there is a plentiful literature about Bali, mush of it attractively illustrated and some published by the museums themselves.
