Prosiding The 4th International Conference on Indonesian Studies: “Unity, Diversity and Future” MODERN ART AND CIVILIZATIONAL TRANSFORMATION, INDONESIA AND BEYOND Jean Couteau Institut Seni Indonesia, Denpasar - Bali
[email protected] There are many ways to approach the theme above proposed by the Conference Conveners. It is possible to focus exclusively on the art side, to try to show for example how modernity appears in Indonesian artworks. But this would be, let us be frank, the easiest and narrowest way. I consider indeed that it is possible to read in the arts not only the state of the society that produces it, but, adopting a broader historical approach, to see in the evolution of the visual art forms a mirror of the evolution of society and, beyond, of civilization in general. This is no novelty. Pierre Frankastel1, in his ground- breaking studies of sociology of art, reads in the apparition of perspective and that of modern(ist) art important paradigmatic changes in European civilization. The history of Indonesian painting in the last two hundred years offers an interesting field to study the phenomenon in a non-Western culture . What does the art produced by Indonesian artists during this period signify. To which extent their representation of the Indonesia of their day, in the two understandings of the word representation, denotes the mental state, if not necessarily of the society of their day, at least of their society in its coming. The task is daunting. It goes from Raden Saleh, whose work spans much of 19th century, to today’s global Yogya artists who communicate more intensely with their San Francisco or Osaka’s equivalents than with artists from Indonesian past or their own Indonesian contemporary colleagues.