affandi the great artist

7/29/2019 Affandi the Great Artist

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AFFANDI THE GREAT ARTIST

An Admirer from across the Seas

Siti, an American girl, was born and had always lived in New York. Everything

about her was American, except for her name which is very Indonesian. Her parents

gave her that name to remind them of Indonesia, a country they had once lived in for

some years and had loved so much.

Since her early age, Siti had always felt close to Indonesia. She grew up in a

house full of kinds of beautiful pieces of art from various parts of Indonesia. Of all

those pieces, the one she loved most is a painting by Affandi, the famous Indonesian

painter.

At first, the painting does not seem Indonesian at all, as it is scene from Times

Square, New York, full of tall buildings, bright lights and many, people. Various bright

colours seemed to dance around the canvas in free, creative lines and shapes. Siti always

enjoyed looking at the painting. Standing close to it, she cannot make out anything aside

from confusing blobs of paint, but as she stands further back, the painting slowly begins

to look like Times Square, the busy place she is very familiar with.

Her father often told her stories about Indonesia, and also about her favorite

artist, Affandi. She grew curious to know more about this man. Her father had met him

once during the time he was working as a journalist in Indonesia. He even kept picture

of the artist. They show a common, simple looking man with an almost bald head and

thin, long hair.

Siti often tried to connect this man with her favourite painting. There was

something she could not understand. The artist looked too simple to create such a great


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work of art. It made her more and more curious about Affandi. She made a plan to visit

Indonesia one day, and see Affandis Museum in Yogyakarta, his home town.

The Long Awaited Trip

After so many years of planning and saving, Siti was finally really flying to

Indonesia, to make her Affandi come alive.

Her plane landed in Jakarta, the capital of Indonesia. She had to see some of her

fathers old friends there. After two days in Jakarta, she took a train to Yogyakarta. It

was an eight hour day trip. As she had a window seat, she could enjoy the beautiful

scenery of green rice fields and peaceful village life.

It was late afternoon when the train got to Yogyakarta. A becak took her to a

hotel. Along the road, she caught something different in this strange place. It was the

peaceful city life of Afandis hometown. She was going to find more about him here.

The Museum

The next morning she took a becak again to the Museum of Affandi, which

was not far from her hotel or the important streets of Yogyakarta. The place was quiet

and showed very little activity. She was the only guests that morning. She entered a

building which looked like cave from the outside with a strange bamboo house on stilts

in front. She promised herself to visit the house afterwards.

A Javanese gentlemen wearing a neat grey suit welcomed grey at the entrance in

good English, and presented himself as the guide of the museum. Actually the museum

consisted of two buildings which looked alike, situated side by side. The first one


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displayed all the works by Affandi. There were sculptures, sketches and paintings. As

she entered the building, it seemed to open up. The thatched roof and ventilation holes

allowed air and light to circulate well. Oil paintings were all over the walls. Some

sketches were also displayed on the open mezzanine. Everything was so simple and

natural, just like the rocks and bamboo in the surrounding area of the museum.

The Process

The guide showed Siti the early sketches and paintings made by the artist when

he was still very young. They were very realistic and naturalistic, depicting his mother,

wife and daughter. But they already showed the flowing curve which would later

develop strength and marked his famous style.

Siti asked the guide a lot of questions. She was very curious to find out more

about the kind of man Affandi had been and the kind of life he had lived. The guide told

her about how Affandi had started as a self-taught billboard artist working for a movie

cinema. At the time he was so poor that he had to sleep outdoors using unused

billboards. At times he even took his little daughter, Kartika, to join him in his

adventurous life.

Affandis continuous hard work and strugle brought him to several countries like

Italy and India where he studied art seriously and developed his unique style which

made him the pioneer of modern Indonesian art of painting. It was Affandi who

introduced the use of strong colours pushed directly out of tubes to be expressively and

spontaneously mixed on the canvas. The reason why Affandi liked to use this method

was because he wanted to quickly express his feeling about the objects he was working

on.


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The guide showed Siti a series of Affandis work, starting from his early very

naturalistic and realistic style to more and more expressionistic. Even his self portraits

show development and process of deviation from the conventional rules of beauty in

painting. The face the artist looks more and more deteriorated in his later portraits. Siti

found out through the guide that this process indicated Affandis wish to keep the

simplicity of his personality and to express his deep sympathy for simple, common

people, so humble was Affandi he did not want people to call him a painted or an artist-

he preferred to be known as a craftsman.

The Compound

The second museum was used for paintings made by several modem painters.

The guide showed Siti to the back of the compound, where tapestry works made by

Affandis wife, Maryati, were displayed. Siti asked the guide if she could have a look at

the bamboo house. He led her first to the cart house next to it. When Affandi was still

strong and could climb the stairs, he used to work up at the bamboo house. As he grew,

older he had to move to the lower cart house which had only several stairs to climb. It

was really a cart brightly painted in green and red, and modified into a house. The

bamboo house had the same colours as the cart house. Under the stilts there was

Affandis favourite bright yellow car. Upstairs there was only one open sitting area and

one bedroom which looked simple but very comfortable and cozy. Around the bamboo

house there were ponds which were naturally decorated with plants and flowers. Is

between the two museums Siti saw the cemetery of Affandis and his wifes. The whole

compound looked so calm, yet warm and friendly. Siti tried to imagine how it used to

be when Affandi had been alive and working there. Several picture in the museum


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described how the artist worked, even when he was too old and weak, helped by his

daughter, Kartika. The image of the artist became much clearer to Siti and seemed to be

so familiar, as if she had known him personally.

The Family

Through the guide Siti learned more about Affandis family. It was a family of

artist. While Affandis work consists mostly of oil paintings, nis wifes comprise

embroidery paintings. Having such artistic parents, their, daughter, Kartika, also

followed the same path with her oil paintings.

As Siti asked more questions about Affandis family, the guide took Siti back to

the museum, to show her sketches and paintings of Affandis mother, his wife and his

daughter.

Siti was very much impressed by the paintings of the artist and his daughter.

Their togetherness was repeatedly shown in several paintings, sketches and even a

sculpture. They reminded her of her own father, and a feeling of homesick crept into her

heart.

He must have been quite a special father, she said to herself, as she looked

again at the paintings of Affandi and Kartika one by one.

The Artists Hometown

Siti thanked the guide as the she left the museum compound. Her head was filled

with the image of Affandi, the great artist of international reputation, who stayed so

simple, dedicating all his life to his art and humanity. Siti stopped a while just outside


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the entrance gate and looked around her. People moved about at a very slow pace, much

slower than what she was used to back in her country.

The becak that had been waiting for her outside the museum took her around

the town, to see the Sultans Palace, the silver craft village and some batik workshops.

Siti was very impressed by the local people who smiled and were very friendly to her

wherever she went.

In the evening she took a leisurely walk along the surrounding streets. She saw a

lot of food stalls along the pavement of the road popularly known as Jalan Malioboro.

Lit by kerosene lamps, people were eating cross-legged and chatting, while some street

musicians played local instruments. Siti was tempted to enter one of the stalls. She even

tried to eat like local people, using her right hand. The people in the stall taught her how

to do it, and she tried to chat with them using her limited Indonesian against their

limited English. She liked the food, and the warmth of this new friendship.

The Humbleness of Rice Stalk

As she walked back to her hotel, she tried to place her favorite Affandi in the

middle of his hometown. What a contrast it was, to imagine the great artist of

international reputation living simple life in the middle of a world of simplicity but

amazing warmth. This contrast somehow answered her questions about the simple artist

and his rich creation. She remembered her fathers words, quoting an Indonesia

proverb: Like a rice stalk bending weighted down with the burgeoning grain.

affandi the great artist

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