ART AND THE ARTIST

THE PLASTIC ARTS IN MODERN BALI

Sculpture and Architecture: The primary function of the average sculptor is to enhance the public buildings of his community with florid decoration and judging from the profusion of such carved temple and palace walls, gates, drum-towers, public baths, court houses, and so forth, seen even in the remotest districts, one comes to the conclusion that there must be an enormous number of sculptors in Bali.

Domestic architecture is simply of wood and thatch with secondary walls, undecorated for the most part, and is the concern of carpenters and thatch-workers. Formerly the vassals of the feudal princes built great palaces for them, many of which are still among the finest examples of Balinese architecture, but today the artistic activity of the people goes into the care of their places of worship and other communal buildings, still erected and repaired with great intensity.

In Bali there is no special class of architects, and the sculptors are in charge of designing, directing, and even working themselves in the construction of a temple, assisted by a number of stone- and brick-workers. A master carver should be able to plan beautiful gates, which are the most important examples of Balinese architecture. In Mas, a village of Brahmanas, we saw once an architectural drawing, rather resembling our architectural projects, for a temple gate to be erected in the village.

The drawing was made by Ida Bagus Ktut, carver, actor, and musician, member of a whole family of artists; the position and shape of the stones and the carvings on what was to be in sandstone were drawn in great detail on European paper with black ink, with the parts to be made of brick painted red. I believe, however, that this drawing was exceptional, and usually the work is started without a drawn plan. For the making of the great towers for cremation, for example, the master builder simply has the design and the proportions already worked out, as the Balinese say, “ in his belly.”

The only stone to be found in the island is a soft sandstone, a conglomerate of volcanic ash called paras, quarried on the banks of rivers. The stone appears to be softer when freshly taken from the ground and becomes harder with time under favourable conditions. Dr. Stutterheim claims that the stone was protected in old times by a coating of cement, but I had no occasion to verify this and I never found evidence of such cement being used by the present-day Balinese.

It is perhaps the softness of this, the only stone in Bali, that is responsible for the over-intricate art of the Balinese, making it possible for them to give full vent to their naive delight in covering all available space with decoration.

The stone is cut and shaped with adzes, directly on the spot where it is quarried, and made into blocks of various sizes according to requirements. For the large statues of demons that guard the entrance of temples, the great block of paras is roughly shaped to resemble its ultimate form, and when it is considered that enough surplus stone has been removed, it is carried to its destination on stretchers of bamboo - not an easy task, since the quarries are generally at the bottom of deep ravines. I have seen as many as fifteen men struggling up a narrow and slippery path with a great block of stone. The schematic mass of the future devil is placed where it is to remain and is finished on the site.

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