There are two main types of woodcarving. Traditional carvings, in the
form of intricate bas-relief tableaux and plaques, are used mainly for
decorating doors, walls and columns. Small, highly standardized wooden
statues of deities and mythical heroes are also produced, designed for
use in public buildings. The second type is contemporary woodcarving, first
developed in the 1930s. Themes usually include highly stylized human or
animal figures, often grotesque, almost psychotic—expressing so well the
Balinese fear of the supernatural. These symbolic carvings evidence a very
strong, sensual feeling for nature.
For the most part, a purely souvenir variety
of modern woodcarving is turned out now. Twenty or thirty talented and
innovative artists have evolved their own distinctive styles, and—just
as in Balinese painting—their successful creations are often assembly-line
produced. Fortunately, the technical skill remains high. A dozen or so
places in Mas, Kemenuh, and Sumampan, the principal woodcarving centers,
sell high-quality carvings for as much as US$3500 apiece.
Some "galleries," like Ida Bagus
Marka in Kemenuh, are actually large complexes of adjoining rooms containing
carvings in all sizes, themes, and colors—from Rp30,000 to Rp10 million.
But regardless of commercial orientation, all carvings share certain characteristics
and techniques uniquely Balinese. Even the copyists work strictly within
the self-imposed parameters of an established style. Virtually all woodcarvers
and maskmakers accept special orders. Bring a photo or a picture of the
piece you'd like copied.
History
In the times of Bali's old feudal kingdoms,
woodcarving served as temple decoration and as the bale of the rajas.
Wood was also utilized in such everyday household features as carved beams,
columns, doors for houses, and implements like musical instruments, tool
handles, bottle-stoppers, and hilts of kris. All these functional
carvings were painted in bright colors, lacquer, or gold leaf; seldom was
the wood left raw.
The 1930s, with the ever-increasing influx
of tourists, saw a dramatic change in the perspective of Balinese wood
sculptors. Shops, street corners, hotel lobbies, marketplaces, the airport,
and harbors suddenly blossomed with objets d'art of an unequivocally commercial
mold, produced to sell. In contrast to the traditional polychrome, mythological
religious carvings, more realistic statues of peasants toiling, nude girls
bathing and deer grazing appeared, themes that found a very ready market
among the tourists. This mercenary impulse gave the art a terrific boost.
An export market soon developed, which found Balinese statues turning up
in Jakarta, Singapore, Paris.
One of the most striking milestones in modern
Balinese sculpture was the emergence of the fluid form of figure sculpture
with elongated arms and face, resembling the thinness of a Giacometti statue
or a long-necked Modigliani. This style was born one day in 1930 when the
artist I Tegelan of Belaluan was asked by Walter Spies to carve
two statues from a long piece of wood. Several days later the carver returned
with a single statue of a girl with an exaggeratedly lengthened torso.
I Tegelan told the delighted Spies he refused to cut such a beautiful piece
of wood in two. With Spies's encouragement and support, the abstract style
soon caught on, and its appeal to carvers and tourists alike continues
to this day.
During the highly creative 1930s, other techniques
also developed. Competition gave rise to much experimentation. In the villages
of Peliatan and Nyuhkuning (near Ubud), sculptors delicately carved animals
and birds with either astounding realism or in caricature, distorting the
features of a subject to heighten its special character. Often the Balinese
artist mischievously sculpted a creature's face to resemble someone in
the community—a stingy old man would be portrayed as a detestable beetle;
a fat, ill-tempered woman as a waddling querulous duck.
One sculptor, I Tjokot, cleverly chiseled
great whorls of demons, divinities, and other mythological characters out
of thick tree branches, crafting his sculptures into benches, lamp supports,
and trays. It's still easy to recognize I Tjokot's abiding earmark, most
often hollowed-out tree stumps over one meter high. A few of this master's
original works may be seen in Ubud's Puri Lukisan.
Another outstanding carver of modern times
was Ida Bagus Njana of Mas, who created phantasmagoric abstract
sculptures of human beings and surrealistic knotty "natural"
sculptures out of gnarly tree trunks. Only small incisions on the surface
indicated contours, the wavy grain of the wood contributing to the motion
of the figure. Ida Bagus was also the progenitor of the fat statues of
toads, elephants, and corpulent sleeping women you now see everywhere.
Several of his carvings may be seen in Ubud's Museum. His son, Ida Bagus
Tilem of Mas, is a talented sculptor in his own right and enjoys an
international reputation.
Contemporary Woodcarving
Traditional-style pieces are still carved. These exotic, utterly imaginary
compositions still hold a basic fascination for tourists: mythological
characters like the great god Vishnu riding on the back of Garuda, a menacing
demon brandishing a kris, and other immortal deities, villains,
and legendary beasts from the Ramayana.
If you bargain, Balinese religious statues
go for as low as Rp10,000. These free-standing sculptures once served as
protective figures for households or as resting places for honored gods
during prayer offerings and other ceremonies. Dressed in classical attire
and profusely ornamented, you'll find Hanuman wrestling a serpent, a dancing
Sita, and painted woodcarvings of a mythic bird to hang from your ceiling.
Called "The Bird of Life," this motif is used in cremation ceremonies
as the bearer of a deceased person's soul to heaven.
In Kuta, the starting price for large mythological
statuary is Rp100,000, but the price will come down to Rp50,000 or less
in the place where it's sculpted. The villages of Pujung, Jati, and Tegalalang,
on the road from Ubud to Gunung Batur, are great places to wander around
and meet carvers. Sebatu is another really active family-oriented woodcarving
center (check out the huge elephants at Sedana Yogya by Iwy. Genjur). Nearly
the whole population of these communities, including the children, are
busy turning chunks of hibiscus, sawo, and belalu into technicolor
sculptures of trees, fruit, flowers, flying angels, cartoon figures, or
whatever. Prices are very reasonable (don't forget to take cash), and you'll
see pieces hard to find in the high-priced factories of Mas and Kemenuh.
If you want something made to order, it isn't a problem and will usually
take about two weeks.
Some of Bali's best woodcarvers also come
from the villages of Singakerta and Pengosekan, both walkable from Ubud.
The best kodok work on the island can be found in these two villages.
Batuan (near Ubud) is the place to shop for carved wood panels.
Buddha statues, still very much in vogue,
come in two sizes: big ones Rp15,000, small ones Rp7000; old men and pedanda,
Rp10,000; a grandmother and grandfather pair, Rp20,000. The singa
(lion) motif is also seen widely. A unique collectible are lontar,
the fan-like leaves of a species of palm tree. For hundreds of years sacred
texts have been meticulously inscribed on these dried strips of palm, shaped
like rulers. These masterpieces of illustrative art and calligraphy provide
the only record of ancient Balinese culture, history, and literature.
Chess sets of carved teakwood (or bone) are
also quite distinctive. Balinese wayang golek (puppets in-the-round)
are larger than Javanese ones. First price is around Rp25,000, but you
can get them down to Rp15,000 apiece. For carved chopsticks, some foot
peddlers on Kuta ask as much as Rp8000 a pair, although you can get them
as low as Rp3000-4000 a pair. They are beautifully carved with owl-head,
abstract, or garuda designs. Whole box sets of 12 pairs go for only
Rp15,000 first price. Don't pay more than Rp2000 a pair for low-end ones.
One abiding product is whole carved banana,
durian, or coconut palm trees, colossally heavy and hanging with wooden
fruit. It takes about a month to produce one of these two-meter-tall trees.
The wood used is Albizzia falcata, which is easy to work with and
readily available. Also found are giant wooden replicas of the "high
offerings" which disassemble and fit solidly back together again.
Fruits like rambutan and jackfruit come alive under the carver's skillful
hands. The center for this type of carving is Tegallalang (Gianyar).
For something different, the more ancestral
woodcarvings of the un-Javanized Bali Aga people of the uplands have a
more primitive feel than those produced in the Hinduized portions of the
island. To see traditional gamelan instrument makers carve ornate
stands and frames for instruments, visit the workshop of Pak Gabeleran
in Blahbatuh, and the gong kembar factory near the village of Tihingan,
10 km southwest of Klungkung.
Techniques
Woodcarving is a skill requiring more precision and sureness than that
of carving stone. The carver starts with a virgin block of wood which he
hacks down to roughly the same size as the piece to be carved. Using very
simple tools, the carver lightly taps the highly sharpened instruments.
Unlike the technique used in the West, he does not use hand pressure except
for really close work.
Fine-grained hardwoods such as teak (jati),
and strong fruit trees such as jackfruit (nangka), the compact sawo
(a beautiful dark red wood), shiny ebony (ebon), tamarind, hibiscus,
frangipani, and kayu jepun are the most popular carving woods.
The texture of the grain determines the nature
of the piece to be carved. Dark ebony, particularly pieces with striped
grain, are best suited for vertical shapes or faces. Rarer are pieces made
of unpolished ebony (sanded and brushed only) where you can make out the
grain in the wood. The blackest ebony might be used to depict a subject
of great dignity. Satinwood, a light striped, beige-colored wood native
to Bali, may inspire pieces of a softer theme. The grain often follows
a skin pattern or veins in the arms of the statue.
Traditionally, if the statue is not to be
gilded or painted it is made smooth with pumice and given a high polish
by rubbing it with bamboo. These finished carvings were once treated and
stained with oils to achieve a pleasing subtle gloss, but now Balinese
artisans find that neutral or black shoe polish produces much the same
result with half the effort.
Walking down the lanes of the carving villages,
you can hear the gentle hammering, sanding, and spontaneous chatter of
the woodcarvers. They sit crosslegged on the floor surrounded by piles
of freshly carved wood chips and rough, uncut blocks as chickens peck their
way around the tools. The sweet aroma of clove cigarettes and coffee fills
the air.
Carvers are paid by the day (Rp5000-10,000),
polishers earn about Rp100,000 per month. Top-class carvers earn 60% of
the selling price. These master carvers usually do not jealously guard
their creations but share ideas willingly with sons and assistants. They
invite apprentices to study carving under them. These pupils eventually
turn out accomplished pieces patterned after their teacher's style.
Studying Woodcarving
Students can get a lot out of learning woodcarving under masters like
Muka and Anom in Mas. These teachers charge Rp10,000 per day for a lesson,
and if you go every day, you can learn to carve your own mask in about
three weeks. The carver guides and supervises your work.
Most students buy their own knives so they
can continue carving at home. Because of all the carving activity on the
island, Bali is one of the best places in Indonesia to buy a set of carving
knives—chisels, gouges, scrapers, mallets in every shape and size. A complete
30-piece set, made from flat steel, costs Rp30,000-35,000. The steel in
better sets (up to Rp190,000) comes from ground-down automobile springs
or concrete reinforcing rods and keeps its edge better than stainless steel.
The better sets include 18 tools, two wooden mallets, and three finishing
knives. Ask around the carving villages or buy them where Muka buys his.
Buying Woodcarvings
Look for a carving that radiates a vitality, that possesses an inner
life of its own. Some figurine carving is unique with faces of painstaking
detail. Always bargain; high, fixed prices are intended for the tour bus
participants who don't have time to bargain. If the price is reasonable,
buy it. In Candidasa, where prices are low, Rangda masks cost as little
as Rp25,000 (but start at Rp50,000). In carving centers like Mas and Kemenuh,
carved banana trees cost Rp75,000, or you can walk down the road and find
the same tree for Rp35,000 (starting price).
Explore Denpasar's Art Centre (Taman
Werdi Budaya, Jl. Nusa Indah in Abiankapas, a suburb of Denpasar) before
making any purchases. Here you'll see a wide range of carving. Also visit
the row of antique shops in Klungkung (east of the Kerta Gosa), and the
Arts of Asia Gallery, Jl. Raya Tuban, Denpasar, tel. 752860 (see
Darwiko).
For a souvenir style carving, head to Denpasar's
Kumbasari Shopping Center, a rabbit warren of shops bristling with
carvings—most the tall, thin, Lempad-inspired type. Decent statues run
in the Rp35,000-45,000 range. Mahartha, Jl. Ir. Soetami 8, Kemenuh,
is a very talented family woodcarver in the neighborhood of Mas who speaks
English, Dutch, and a little French.
The gallery of Ida Bagus Tilem, one
of the great Balinese carvers, is located in Mas. Many of his carvings
are not for sale, and the ones for sale are very expensive. I Wayan
Sila sells beautiful carvings for a reasonable price. While in Mas,
check out the Tantra Gallery too.
In Gianyar, Dutch priest Pater Maurice runs
a carving school where you can see the finest carved teakwood panels, some
several meters in length. They are priced by the cubic meter. Smaller ones
are also for sale.
If the seller claims that an article is made
of pure sandalwood from Nusatenggara Timur, there's a 99% chance it is
some cheap imitation like coffeewood, even if it smells like sandalwood.
Also beware of bargain prices for "ebony" carvings. True ebony
is expensive, very dense, heavy, and has a glossy, reddish-brown striped
surface. If the statue is painted, it's difficult to detect defects in
the wood. Check for cracks and make sure all attached parts—like wings,
crowns, and feet—are properly fitted. Have the carver explain any discoloration.
To prevent the wood from cracking and shrinking in more temperate Western
climes, some dealers have drilled a large cavity within the statue to allow
moisture to escape. The bottoms of truly old statuary have not been touched.