ASEAN Journal on Hospitality and Tourism, Vol. 1, pp. 117—132 Printed in . All rights reserved.THE IMPACT OF TOURISM

THE IMPACT OF TOURISM ON THE DEVELOPMENT OF PAINTING ART

SALMON PRIAJI MARTANA

Centre for Research on Tourism Institut Teknologi Bandung, Indonesia

This article will delineate the impact of tourism on the development of Ubud painting art, starting from the establishment of Balinese Kingdom to the present day. It argues that prominent figures like the historic figures that existed in parallel with the art history of Ubud is needed, in order to help the society in transition like that of Ubud to anticipate radical changes and to strive for the survival and maintenance of their art life.

Bali, Ubud, painting art, traditional

The impact of tourism on art life which are practiced by local community members and artists varied from one place to the other. In many developed countries, art life enjoys positive tourism impact. for example, succeeded in conserving and revitalizing life in its Chinatown and Little India cultural enclaves using a specific scientific policy in the middle of the 1980’s. Through a contemporary process called disneyfication, Singapore has built several theme parks to increase citizens’ appreciation to local culture (Teo & Yeoh, 1997). But an opposite situation can happen in more traditional societies. Their more simple character makes them susceptible to abuse by tourism. Take the Aborigine in Australia for example, who were forced to change the size of their traditional musical instruments to meet the tourist demand for souvenirs. This is an act regarded as a betrayal to the original cultural values. In another location, Papua New Guinea, a group of local dancers attacked tourists with bows and arrows following unfair judgments in local arts festival (Lea, 1988). Tourism negative impact on art also took place in , particularly in Desa Ubud, a well known cultural tourism destination.

Bali, a 5,800 square kilometer island, might be considered as one of the fastest growing tourism destinations in the world. Its unique culture, exotic nature and charming people have attracted tourists from all around the world to visit. It is undeniable that Bali has made a very large contribution to Indonesia’s foreign exchange from the tourism sector which is the country’s third largest following oil/gas and textile sectors.

Through the years Bali has been well known for its beautiful panoramas and mesmerizing dancing arts. Individual Balinese dances like the Manukrawa, Legong Keraton, Mergapati, Pendet and Baris as well as the more communal dances like Kecak, are performed everywhere, not only in Bali but also in Europe and America. Scholars and anthropologists from all around the world have studied the phenomenon of Balinese dancing arts, which connect so often to mystical Balinese ways of life.

Address correspondence to Salmon Priaji Martana. Centre for Research on Tourism, Institut Teknologi Bandung, Villa Merah, Jl Tamansari 78, Bandung 40132, Indonesia. Tel +62 816 627652 E-mail: [email protected]

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So far, few scholars have paid much attention to Balinese painting arts, in particular the traditional painting art which has performed a major role in promoting and forming Bali’s image as the lost paradise, since the early days of 20th Century. When Balinese Dance had not yet reached its present fame, the unique, traditional paintings of Ubud painters, through several exhibitions held in Europe, became an unexpected promotion for whole aspects of Balinese society, and helped create demand among Europeans to come and visit the small island. Until this day, the role of Balinese painting art is still significant.

John Lea (1988) noted that tourism market pressures always result in the decreasing quality of physical cultural products, and this happened also in Ubud-Bali. Painting art started to receive unbearable side effects from tourism activities; patterns, styles, production processes and even marketing management were forced to change to please the demand of tourism markets. Nowadays, one could say that Ubud paintings are not a pure art form coming from the hearts and souls of the painters, but merely the art formed by the financial attraction from tourism.

This article will delineate the impact of tourism on the development of Ubud painting art, from its very beginning to the era where tourism became the master for art to serve. It also aims to describe the amazing transformation of Ubud from a simple agriculture village, where most of the inhabitants were farmers, to become a modern tourism village where cultures are blended, and the indigenous are hardly recognized during the peak tourism months.

UBUD

The modern Ubud is situated 11 km from the capital city of Gianyar Regency, and 26 km from , the capital city of Bali. The soil is fertile and suitable for agriculture, the main livelihood until the early days of the 1980s. Ubud’s altitude at 250 – 360 meters above sea level, and the 10 square kilometer village provides a perfect place for work and contemplation.

Ubud was the centre of power in the old Balinese Kingdom era, ruled by the Pejeng Dynasty in Bedulu, east of modern Ubud. It was Gajah Mada, the prime minister of the Kingdom of Majapahit, who conquered Bali in 1334, in his pursuit to bring together the entire Southeast Asian archipelago under the Hindu Majapahit Kingdom. The Majapahit district government under Kresna Kapakisan and his men, a noble Javanese, replaced the power of the Pejeng Dynasty. Most of the Balinese aristocratic families who live in the present royal palace are descendants of those Majapahit nobles, and are proud of it. Under Kresna Kapakisan’s order, the capital was moved from Bedulu to Samprangan. Two generations later, it was moved again to Gelgel, the most famous Balinese town in the past.

The Majapahit reached its peak prosperity under the government of King Hayam Wuruk (1350-1389). In Hayam Wuruk’s time, the Majapahit military grew rapidly and the Majapahit culture certainly spread to Bali and other colonies. That was the early time of development, before it became the art form we know today.

After Hayam Wuruk’s death, the Majapahit Kingdom started to lose its stability. Sharp friction between successors aggravated the rot between the nation’s pillars. The

118 THE IMPACT OF TOURISM colonies were daring to separate and establish their own governments. The existence of Islam became one of the major causes of instability, in the early days of the 15th Century. Islam actually had entered the land of through trading routes established many years earlier. Its social system, which did not separate people by caste, became a great attraction to the traders whose position was low in the former Hindu caste system. Day after day, more and more coastal people converted to Islam as their religion, a matter that shocked the hollow Majapahit Kingdom.

The year 1478 was an important time in the history of Balinese art. Demak, a small kingdom located on the north coast of Java, attacked the weaker Majapahit in a holy war. As predicted, the Majapahit fell apart, and the influence of Islam then spread throughout Java with no one able to obviate it. Anxiety emerged among the faithful Hindu, regarding the fast growth of Islam’s influence among the Javanese. To avoid Islamization, they fled as refugees to the safer eastern island of Bali. Among these were artists, scholars and priests.

Lontar Markandya Purana, a manuscript written on palm leaves recorded that 2,000 people, scholars, artists and their families, under the leader Mpu Markandya, a Hindu elder, moved from Java to Bali during the period of 1478 Islamization. In Bali, Mpu Markandya, along with his followers, opened a forest for their settlement, in the location later known as Campuhan, a small part of modern Ubud. Campuhan is an area where the water of two rivers meets, and in Hindu ritual, water is a very important element. The waters of Campuhan were later discovered to have the peculiar property to heal sickness. Many people came to have the waters of Campuhan and increased the popularity of this place. In local Balinese language, this healing water is called ubad (obat in Bahasa Indonesia; medicine in English). From that time, the word ubad has evolved into ubud, and thus the origin of the famous village name of Ubud.

The Balinese welcomed the arrival of those priests, high-class artists, dancers, painters and carvers from the Majapahit with delight. One of the refugee priests, Danghyang Nirartha (also known as Great Priest Wawu Rawuh) was directly installed as palace priest and main counselor by the King Waturenggong, the ruler of Bali at the time. Majapahit artists had found a new oasis to satisfy their thirst, and started to work again with all their hearts and souls. Waturenggong’s ideal was to build a little Majapahit by supporting those artists in developing their art quality. Slowly, Balinese art started to find its form, which was totally separated from artistic developments in Java under Islamic rule. Waturenggong also let Danghyang Nirartha to build temples around the coasts of Bali. We can still see most of them today, like the temple Uluwatu on the south peninsula of Bali.

Several generations later, when the Balinese Kingdom felt apart into smaller kingdoms, the art life continued to develop. The artists, descendants of the earlier Majapahit artists, spread out and worked for the palaces of smaller kingdoms, where they became known as sungging.

In 1597, Dutch expedition led by Captain Cornelius Houtman landed on the coast of Bali. This was the earliest meeting between Balinese indigenous culture and western culture. The whole European crew stood in amazement watching the King of Bali come with his 200 wives, sitting in a golden chariot pulled by two white buffaloes. The beauty of its nature, the welcoming dances and Bali’s unique culture mesmerized the

119 SALMON PRIAJI MARTANA ship’s crew. Half of the sailors refused to go back to their country and decided to stay on the paradise island. The rumor of Bali’s enchantment then spread rapidly through the lands of Europe starting from the Netherlands. This established the Netherlands’s secret desire to own, conquer and benefit from Bali. It was an advantage to Bali that the more eastern islands’ resource of spices continued to maintain its position as the largest foreign exchange resource for the Netherlands Indies, so Bali was left independent until entering the 20th Century.

THE BEGINNING OF TOURISM

The end of 19th Century and early days of 20th Century was an important period for Bali. The government of the Netherlands Indies, which for a long time had desired to explore Bali, changed some of its government policies. In 1904, General J.B. van Heutz, a successful veteran from the Aceh war, was transferred to Batavia (now ), and promoted to be Governor General, the highest authority in the Netherlands’ colony. He turned the new acts against Bali and the approach towards Bali, from soft to hard line policies.

After implementing divide and conquer (devide et impera) politics to destroy the smaller kingdoms of Bali, the Dutch engaged in a military campaign between 1906 and 1908 to demolish the last two big kingdoms of Bali, Badung and Klungkung. The war of 1906 was known as Puputan Badung, where the Dutch troops assassinated the King of Badung and his family along with his faithful followers. The official report recorded 400 victims, but other sources mention the number of over 4.000.

Protests were raised in half the world, from London, Paris to New York. The sadistic Aceh war and the inhuman practice of forced cultivation (cultuurstelsel) weakened the Netherlands’ diplomatic position among European countries. The Netherlands reacted by introducing “ethic politic”, a group of policies meant to show gratitude and respect to the indigenous. The implementation of ethic politic, the long war against rebellions in Java and Aceh, and the halt of “cultuurstelsel” resulted in a new financial crisis for the government of the Netherlands Indies. Soon, several new financial resources had to be found. One of the most reliable alternative resources was tourism, with the almost forgotten Bali as a major destination.

It is interesting to note that the earlier promotion on Bali did not come from the government of Netherlands Indies, but from “The Wanderer“ W.O.J. Nieuwenkamp, the first western artist to visit Bali. He was born in Amsterdam in 1876, and came to Bali in 1904 to study Balinese traditional paintings. He returned to his country because of illness but then came back to Bali in 1906 and stayed there until 1907, where he became a witness to the great Puputan Badung war in Denpasar. Nieuwenkamp did not make direct contributions to local art, but it was his writings that later inspired other Europeans to come and visit Bali. In 1910 Nieuwenkamp published his first book, Bali en Lombok, the first book that describes Bali explicitly, containing reproductions of his paintings, ethnological research and a fair archeological study. After this book was published, Nieuwenkamp joined the photographer Gregor Krauser in a Bali Exhibition that took place in Amsterdam. The material of the exhibition was mainly Nieuwenkamp’s paintings and Krauser’s photographs. Later, Krauser published his own book, which also helped to promote Bali to the outside world.

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After the great Puputan Badung, local painters in Bali started to experience hard times. This situation forced the second exodus of artists, like the one that had occurred in the Waturenggong era, 500 years earlier. Ubud, the region ruled by the Sukawati Dynasty was the most convenient place for the fleeing artists to settle. As a moderate and western educated person, Sukawati found that the only way to maintain peace and prosperity in his territory was to cooperate with the Dutch. In return, the government gave Sukawati an authority to build Ubud according to his ideals.

Again, as had happened before, high-class artists, painters and carvers overflowed Ubud. However, there was one problem left unsolved, and that was the well being of those painters. Although Sukawati had a close relationship with the government, and was even a member of Volkskraad –the citizen council in Batavia- he was not able to employ all the artists in his territory, while to encourage them to become farmers like common people was also impossible. The future of the art life remained a big question at the time.

In the meantime, Bali was being carefully prepared by the government to be a cultural tourism destination. Things that were considered to be a hindrance to the richness of Balinese culture were swept away from this tiny island. The government, for instance, forbade large Netherlands companies to open rubber estates, sugar and tea plantations like those established in Java. Even Christian missionaries were forbidden, because the government was afraid that Christian doctrine would change the Balinese way of life, and destroy the ideals of making a living museum of the past Majapahit traditions.

Experiments in tourism promotion began. In 1910, Governor General A.W.F. Idenburg formed the organization Vereeniging voor Touristen (VTV), an official agency that helped the government arrange tourism in the Netherlands Indies. VTV published guidebooks of Bali tourism in 1913. In the Bali straits, the giant steamboats of the K.P. M. (Koninglijke Paketvaart Maatscahppij- Netherlands Ship Company) operated transportation between Java, Bali and other eastern islands. The Netherlands Indies Official Tourist Bureau published monthly articles called Tourism and sent them to over 10,000 addresses all around the world. The government even sent scholars, historians and archeologists to study Balinese culture, and encouraged the Balinese to reestablish several almost forgotten rituals. The government also increased tourism promotion to America, like the movie “Bali Sorga Terachir” (Bali, the Last Paradise) screened on Hollywood Boulevard. With a help of W.O.J. Nieuwenkamp, in the early days of 1920s, Bali was ready to become an international tourist destination, marked by the opening of Netherlands-to-Netherlands Indies flights. In the early days of 1930s, Bali was reported as being visited by over 1,200 tourists per year (from the about 9,000 tourists visiting the Netherlands Indies). Among them were the celebrities Barbara Hutton, Noel Coward, and Charlie Chaplin (who made a collection of Balinese pornography).

The development of tourism brought new implications. Interactions between locals and tourists established new necessities, one of them was the need to have cultural products as souvenirs. With the increasing numbers of tourists, idle artists simply found new jobs. Like waking from a long sleep, they started work to fulfill market demand. This marked the end of a long history of religious Balinese paintings. Before this, Balinese paintings were always dedicated to ritual ceremony, a form of non-commercial art, where the painters were proud to see their paintings hang on the walls of temples or

121 SALMON PRIAJI MARTANA palaces.

Financial benefit gained from these new tourism activities pushed artists to work harder and harder. It looked as though the problem of artists’ well-being was solved. Unfortunately, painting oriented merely to serve market demand eroded the quality of the paintings themselves day by day.

Anxiety about this was felt by Cokorda Gede Agung Sukawati, who was very concerned about the development of Ubud paintings art. A similar concern was also felt by two close friends of Sukawati, and . Both of them were European painters who had lived in Bali for a long time. Spies was a German who worked for Sultan Hamengku Buwono in Yogyakarta, while Bonnet was a Dutch painter, who had come to the Netherlands Indies after wandering around Europe for many years. Bonnet had met Nieuwenkamp in Florence, Italy, and became inspired by Nieuwenkamp ‘advertisements’ about Bali. Together Spies and Bonnet opened an art workshop in Bali, to help Balinese traditional painters work in modern techniques. The interaction process was unique. While Spies and Bonnet helped local painters develop their skill as individuals, the artists helped Spies and Bonnet discover the sense to record a vision from daily life of that beautiful place.

On January 29, 1936, Spies, Bonnet and Cokorda Gede Agung Sukawati established an artists group called ‘Pitamaha’, a name derived from ancient Javanese language meaning “great grandfather”. Pitamaha is often used to describe Brahma, god of creation in Hindu. Besides Sukawati, Spies and Bonnet, there were 150 members of the group, including painters, carvers and klian, elders in traditional law. A routine meeting was held once a week in Spies’ house at Campuhan. I Gusti Nyoman Lempad, later a famous Balinese painter, was installed as secretary of this group. The aims of Pitamaha were: to promote local art and culture; to increase the quality of local art; and to help local artists in distribution and marketing matters.

Walter Spies made a comment about the establishment of Pitamaha in the magazine of East Indies Culture, ‘Djawa’, July 1936, “The Pitamaha is a society, a guild of Balinese plastic arts. The first aim of the society is to stimulate art and the second to be interested in the material welfare of the members. Their works are submitted to a strict examination by connoisseurs and are obtainable in the Bali Museum at Denpasar. Such an examination at the same time serves the interests of the buyer. For the trouble she (sic) charges only a small percentage to cover the expenses.”

Further to their commitment to improve the Ubud painting art, Spies and Bonnet organized several exhibitions of Balinese paintings in Batavia, the Netherlands and Germany. Bonnet himself acted as a collector, to assemble the best paintings of the Ubud painters. At the end of his life, he was known to have 235 paintings by Ubud painters, most of them shown in a great exhibition, which took place in Amsterdam and Den Haag in 1937. Smaller scale exhibitions were held throughout the Netherlands Indies in Singaraja, Denpasar, Bandung, Batavia, Surabaya, Tegal and Palembang.

Through the guidance of Walter Spies and Rudolf Bonnet, all out support from Sukawati and the orderly organization of Pitamaha, Ubud paintings developed quite quickly in quality and number as well. Sales increased while quality was maintained. Spies and Bonnet acted as art dealers, who opened the foreign market to their own

122 THE IMPACT OF TOURISM clients, for their personal reputations lent credibility to the foreign buyers. The painter members of Pitamaha enjoyed prosperity for the next 5 years.

The situation then changed in the early days of the 1940s. Tourism activities decreased following the start of World War II. On September 19, 1942, Japanese troops landed on Sanur Beach in Bali and marched directly to Denpasar. It was not long before the whole of Bali was conquered, and power removed from the Dutch. The Japanese concentrated their government in Denpasar and Singaraja. Kempeitai, the rude and arrogant Japanese military police, started to cleanse Bali of those considered being western collaborators. Spies and Bonnet were taking into prison.

Figure 1 The Landscape and Its Children, by Walter Spies (1939). Depicts the beauty of Ubud in the early days of 20th century. Source: Green. Spies died on the journey to his exile in Sri Lanka when a Japanese fighter aircraft bombed the transport ship. Bonnet was banished to Makassar in Sulawesi. The Pitamaha organization fell apart and members fled to the mountains to find safety. Tourism activities were paralyzed when the Japanese turned all tourism facilities such as hotels and restaurants into army barracks and hospitals.

In 1948, after Indonesia gained the independence, Bonnet returned to Bali and began to restore his past activities in Bali. He established a new group called ‘Golongan Pelukis Ubud’ (Painters’ Group of Ubud). With all the local painters as members, this group tried to equal the success of Pitamaha, but never succeeded. However, the situation improved quickly as Bali was relaunched as an international tourism destination. Artists got their jobs back, and started once again working to fill the demand of the new tourism market.

Sales significantly increased, while the painters, students of Spies and Bonnet two decades ago, were beginning to master modern techniques. Even so, once again

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anxiety rose. If the best paintings of Ubud kept flying to collectors in other countries, would the next generation of Balinese be required to visit European galleries and museums just to see Balinese paintings? This matter then re-energized the old idea of establishing a special museum for Ubud’s best paintings.

Facilitated by Golongan Pelukis Ubud and the Ratna Warta Foundation, a foundation formed by Sukawati, the museum was opened officially on January 31, 1956, by the Prime Minister Mohamad Yamin. The museum that collects paintings of local painters, as well as foreign painters who lived in Ubud is still open to this day, and has become the source of inspiration for continuing generations of Ubud painters.

Bonnet’s actions in helping local painters develop Balinese art were halted in 1957, following his problems with immigration authorities. Rumor has it that his refusal to sell his paintings to President was the cause.

YOUNG ARTISTS

In the early 1960s, Bali faced difficult times. Agriculture output Figure 2 decreased, and fortune-tellers Rice Farmers at Work, by Ketut Lasia. foretold that the situation would Village daily lives, common theme after worsen day by day because the the era of Pitamaha. Balinese had forgotten their gods Source: Ketut Lasia’s Collection and divine retribution would be sought. This became a reality when in 1962 an epidemic occurred in Balinese rice fields. Rats, millions of them, came from nowhere and attacked almost all the fertile countryside. The infestation caused great damage, a disaster that had never happened before nor has happened since. The government was very late in responding to the disaster, and although local communities rallied and fought against the rats, not much was saved.

Those rats apparently were only the beginning of a long drama. The anger of the gods had not yet reached its peak. On February 18, 1963, came a bigger disaster. Mount Agung, a sacred 2,900 meters volcano, which had been considered long dead, woke up and threw smoke and dust into the air. The people of Bali felt the land tremble. Approaching March 8, things got worse when the mountain threw up mud and stone to the areas surrounding it, and 9 days later, the real eruption occurred. Hot lava melted

124 THE IMPACT OF TOURISM down the mountain slopes, while fire and smoke were thrown high up into the sky and blocked the sunlight. Panic spread among the Balinese at the rampage of their holy mountain. While amazed by the fact that the great temple Besakih located on the mountain slope surprisingly survived, many people were killed by the direct impact as well as by the starvation and famine following the eruption.

At that time, the people of Ubud were almost wholly an agricultural society. People did not cultivate commercially, and farmed only for their own sustenance (Mekir et al, 1994). The destruction of the rice fields then, created enormous problems for those simple villagers, who only knew art, dances, painting, carving and farming for their daily lives. Many of them joined a transmigration program, and relocated to Sulawesi. For those who remained, once more art, especially painting, became their only alternative.

Six years earlier, a new figure had become prominent in the art world of Ubud painting, replacing Bonnet’s former position. He was , an ex-map maker in the Dutch army who had survived the concentration camps in Myanmar. After the war was over, Smit wandered around Java and finally traveled to Bali and stayed in Campuhan Ubud.

One day in 1960, as he walked to Panestanan, a small part of Ubud, he saw a 12 year old duck herder, drawing a picture in the sand using a rib of palm frond. Smit was amazed by his drawing skills. He asked the young boy to come to his studio and offered him a painting lesson. The boy, I Nyoman Cakra by name, agreed on one condition, that he would be permitted to invite I Ketut Soki, his cousin, to accompany him. The two young boys became Smit’s first pupils. Smit’s patience and interest began to attract other boys in the village, and soon, there were 40 teenagers in the workshop at Smit’s studio.

Those teenagers had a strange but exotic style of painting. They used primary colors, and the kind of colors rarely found in daily life such as purple, pink and orange. Strong outline and repetitive objects were distributed on the canvas in parallel or symmetrically. Their freedom in choosing color really depicts Balinese basic character, a people who like strong colors and use it as a non-verbal expression. Those kind of colors are easy to find in Bali, in the foods used for Banten (ritual food offerings), colored rice, tropical fruits, banners, umbrellas and ritual decorations, as well as the traditional clothing they wear (Jensen & Suryani, 1996). Those child-like paintings -known as the Young Artists’ style, referring to the age of the painters- rose up and shocked the world of Balinese art. Even Lim Cheong Kit, a famous Malaysian collector, visited to purchase these new style paintings from Panestanan.

When the food crisis developed following the Mount Agung eruption in 1963, with dust and smoke polluting the air and the destruction of all the rice fields, painting came as the only alternative for people to survive. Day after day, more and more people left their old jobs and turned to painting, enticed by better financial prospects compared to agricultural endeavors. The problem was, not just the children from Smit’s studio but whole villages settled down to paint in exactly the same style, so the Young Artists’ style became a mass production. As a result, the Young Artists’ style was considered not art painting at all, but merely a cheap craft one could find at

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common vendors. Bad management made no distinctions, and forced a market to continue selling low quality paintings. The market soon fell apart and that ended the brief glorious time of the Young Artists. There were not many successful Young Artists after I Ketut Soki. Today, 40 years after the emergence of the Young Artists painters, the style is not discussed seriously anymore, although quite a few of the artists still try to hang on. The Young Artists came as phenomenon with a promising start but a disappointing end.

In 1965, Bali once again tempted the gods. The extermination of the communist rebellion in Jakarta spread rapidly to almost every part of Java in the form of mass assassinations. The Balinese soon joined their neighbour for the stated reasons of eliminating the sinners who had made the gods angry, while most of the victims were simple people knowing nothing of politics. And even though massacres occurred everywhere through-out Indonesia, Bali was the worst. Not less than 100,000 lives were taken and, with the whole of the Bali population numbering no more than 1,782,017 in the 1961 census, one can imagine the terror that reigned. Tourism was paralyzed, and the future of Balinese art life was once again in question.

ERA OF BOOMING TOURISM

In 1968, General Suharto who had full western support, replaced the government of President Sukarno. As a soldier, he was an expert in maintaining national stability. Slowly security was restored. Suharto placed tourism as a national priority, the government increased promotional efforts, and Bali returned to the international tourism markets. In the middle of the 1970s, the world saw a booming tourist destination in Bali. The fall of oil prices in the international marketplace resulted in a slowdown of Indonesian economic growth from 8% to only 3% per year. The government then became even more enthusiastic to increase foreign exchange earnings through tourism. Fast and radical developments came as a result. Almost all Balinese sectors experienced a cultural shock. Ubud became an international village, with hundreds of cultures blended and mixed. Every development was directed towards the fulfillment of tourism needs. Every public and private facility turned to support tourism. Statistics show that at the end of the 1970s, tourism facilities in Ubud were 6 times greater compared to the beginning of the 1960s. In the early days of the 1990s, they were once more fantastically folded 7 times greater (Mekir et al, 1994). At the same time, the number of visitors folded 40 times compared to the number of visitors in the beginning of the 1970s (Mangkudilaga, 1997).

Intense interaction with many other cultures in a very short time brought Balinese, mostly the youth, into what was called an acute identity crisis. The Rolling Stones, Deep Purple, Rainbow and western “heavy metal” music groups rapidly influenced the young people, followed by a lessening of appreciation towards local arts. Traditional musical instruments such as gamelan vanished from sight, and though the sound was still needed in some ritual ceremonies, an organizer was more proud if it emanated from a modern stereo set (Jensen & Suryani, 1996). Local arts were still performed for the consumption of tourists, but it was without the earlier religious values.

However, it is undeniable that tourism helped increase the economic welfare of the

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Balinese in general. For the artists and painters, interaction with the outside world paved the way for academic art development. The positive economic climate made it possible for families of young painters to send them to art schools like the ITB in Bandung, ASRI Yogyakarta and the University of Udayana in Denpasar. Pioneered by Nyoman Gunarsa, Made Wianta and friends, the Balinese alumnus of those art schools developed a new and more academic discourse on painting art, by digging to the roots of Balinese culture and mixing it comprehensively with modern and academic methods and techniques.

UBUD PAINTING AFTER THE TOURISM BOOM

Following Spies arrival in the late 1920s, Ubud developed into a kind of expatriate capital in Bali. Artists, cultural observers and writers came and stayed for long periods. At that time the situation was calm and peaceful. The change began in the 1970s, when from that time on, especially in August, when visitor numbers reach its peak, Ubud’s visitors outnumbered locals in the village.

The growth of tourism made particular problems for Ubud. Changes occurred in the social composition from agricultural people to ‘tourism’ people. General prosperity contributed to the overpopulation of both Ubud and Bali. Ubud’s population for the year 2002 is predicted to reach 10,000 people, with a density of over 1,000 people per square kilometer. On the other hand, land for agriculture is growing smaller, replaced by tourism facilities. The composition of Ubud’s tourism facilities, most of them emerging during the 1970s, is shown in Table 1, where the dominant function of selling paintings and other cultural products is quite strong.

Table 1 Tourism Facilities in Ubud, 1994.

Facilities Percentage (%) 1 Art Shop, Souvenir Shop & Art Gallery 44,19 2 Hotel 31,40 3 Restaurant 16,28 4 Painting Studio 4,65 5 Rent Car 3,48

Source: Mekir et al, 1994

Tourism generated activities are considered to have the ability to guarantee the continuance of the high-class lifestyle enjoyed by Ubud that began from middle 1970s. The people of Ubud live in very close relationships, almost like a family, so every single success story of one member of the community becomes an example to others. The success of a person who turned his land from rice fields to a restaurant for example, is soon emulated by his neighbour. Table 2 shows the tendency of landowners to turn their lands into other functions to support tourism activities.

Whether like it or not, tourism offers higher returns than agriculture. For the local

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Table 2 Reasons for Change of Land Use in Ubud, 1994.

Reasons Percentage (%) 1 The land is located along tourism route 49,38 2 Profit from agriculture is too small 24,69 3 Providing job opportunities for people 16,05 4 Investment 9,88 Source: Mekir et al, 1994

people, this is considered the solution to the problems of daily price increases, which is a result of local inflation triggered by tourism (Kodhyat, 1996). The local people must use extra income to be able to compete with hotels and restaurants to buy quality fresh eggs, meats, vegetables and rice for their own tables.

Unlike other fast growing tourism destinations in Indonesia, after the land use is changed, the ownership of properties remains local, while in other parts of Indonesia in similar cases, possession is taken over by wealthy conglomerates from Jakarta. In Ubud, 81.4% of the tourism facilities are still owned by local people with only 18.6% owned by outside entrepreneurs. Tourism facilities are mostly (91.86%) managed by locals, while the remaining (8,14%) are hired out.

With the land for agriculture getting smaller by the day, as well as the decrease of other traditional means of livelihood, the artist profession is now occupied by a greater number of people. Art as a job rose to be the second largest means of livelihood in Ubud, and there was only slight difference between it and agriculture (Table 3). With more painters in Ubud, one might hope that there would be a healthy competition to inspire high quality art products. Unfortunately, this is not what has happened. Table 3 Ubud’s Livelihood Composition, 1994.

Means of Livelihood Percentage (%) 1 Farmer 21,78 2 Painter, Carver 21,45 3 Civil Servant 21,12 4 Entrepreneur 18,48 5 Construction sector 17,16 6 Trader 11,88

Source: Mekir et al, 1994

The great quantity of painters are without any leaders to follow, creating a situation not unlike what happened to the Young Artists generation, namely, stereotypic art

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Table 4 The Development Phases of Ubud Painting Art

Development Prominent Characteristics phase Figures Balinese Watureng- • Religious paintings, placed in temples of palaces. Kingdoms gong, • Theme of heroism epic in Wayang style. era (1478 – Danghyang • Painter did not sign on his/her painting. early 1900s). Nirartha, next • Material of dluwang (wood skin), or cotton fabric, Balinese colored using stone, black of oil lamp residue, and Kings. lipstick from China. • Painters worked for the palaces. Early Sukawati, • Painting started to become commercial. Tourism Walter Spies, • Theme of daily lives. (1920 – Rudolf Bonet. • Painters name mentioned. 1960). • Started using canvass and tempera paint. • Painters worked as individuals. The Young Arie Smit, • Very commercially, tourism as a master to serve Artists Ketut Soki. • Young Artists style domination (1960 – • Mass production 1970). Tourism Nyoman • Academic art, pioneered by painter alumnus of art Booming Gunarsa, school. (1970 – Made Wianta, • Digging a theme from Balinese Culture root and 1980). Pande Supada, combine it with modern technique and methods. Wayan Arsana,

Post • People’s appreciation to art decreasing. Tourism • Trapped in stereotype theme and style Booming • Art industrialization. (1980 – present). works. This happens in particular to those who do not come from art schools like ITB and ASRI; painters graduated from art schools usually have their own markets.

Painters who work in traditional ways are not as successful as their predecessors. They can only sell their paintings as vendors in traditional markets to tourists who are not concerned about quality. The paintings, known as lukisan kodian, sell cheaply, from US$ 10 to US$ 25, depending on the frame size.

More worrisome still are the cases of painters who are also employed as construction workers. They paint during their idle days. The price of their paintings is calculated at the same rate as their wages for construction work. For paintings taking three days, the price is the same as wages for three days working on a construction project. While the standard wage for a Balinese construction worker is US$ 4.50 a day, the price for the painting would be US$ 13.50. However, the materials used are not high quality – frequently they use common wall paint- and in most cases ordinary tourists are

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unaware of this. The durability of these paintings is very different than normal paintings. After a year the colors fade or even peel off. Among this type of painter however are many who have appropriate skills and techniques to sell their paintings to galleries, if there were the chance.

There is also a kind of practice, which is accused of destroying Ubud paintings; the locals called it ban berjalan (conveyor belt). The process is exactly the same as that in a factory. The method is to separate the painting process into several phases, each phase worked by a different person. The first person makes the basic sketch, and after this is completed, the canvass is transferred to a second person, who emphasizes the contours using china ink. The process continues to a third person for basic coloring, and last, to a fourth person who is specialized in finishing. This kind of practice will of course produce a great number of paintings in short time, but with quality left behind. Often this kind of painting industrialization is instigated by foreigners, who pay young Ubud painters a few dollars, then sell the paintings back in their own countries.

CONCLUSION

Art development in Ubud, particularly that of painting has shown a unique progress. Its long history has proven that art is not only formed by aspects directly related to aesthetics, but also to outside factors. Politics, economics, and social factors claim major roles in forming the art.

At the end of 20th century tourism became a very important factor in forming economic patterns for the local people of Ubud. This influence has been shown by the changing livelihoods of the people from agriculture to functions that support tourism development. This change occurred spontaneously, without logical planning from the parties involved, and the decrease of art quality is the result.

The facts also show that every improvement in conditions concerning local or international political and security concerns lead to increasing stability and consequently to increased numbers of tourists. Unfortunately, the increase of tourism was always considered to be the “master” to serve and painting became the “servant” to satisfy it.

The spirit of art is already integrated in the Balinese way of life in general. Therefore, it was easy for Balinese to change from whatever they were to become artists, for they were born to be artists, as Miguel Covarubias described in his book, Island of Bali (1937), “Everybody in Bali seems to be an artist. Princes, priests, and peasants, men and women alike, can dance, play musical instruments, paint or carve in wood or stone.” However, this does not mean that all artwork is suitable for sale if the aspect of quality is taken into account.

Society in transition, like that of Ubud, is often unprepared to anticipate changes that are radical and swift. That is the role of leaders like the historic figures that existed in parallel with the art history of Ubud, such as Waturenggong, Nirartha, all the kings of the past, Spies, Bonnet, Sukawati and Smit. Figures like these are still needed to be a buffer between tourism and the local people (Evans, 1994). Unfortunately at this time,

130 THE IMPACT OF TOURISM that kind of figure is hardly visible.

It is undeniable that Ubud art, particularly painting, has given significant contribution starting from the promotion of Bali in the early development of tourism, until the present era of modern tourism. After all, everyone should be aware of the decreasing quality of art products. 70 years ago, Sukawati and his fellow men succeeded in anticipating negative impact by achieving several comprehensive efforts that brought prosperity to all parties involved. Today, with more complex problems, the question is can Ubud painting art survive and maintain its quality? Or will it be lost as the price paid for economic success? It is an interesting continuing drama to be observed

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

The author is grateful to Ketut Lasia for the early discussion as well as the use of his painting to illustrate this article; and to Frances B. Affandy for her helpful comments and corrections on the first draft of this paper.

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