Suchergebnisse

In the course of the years 1870-80, colonial enterprises developed in several places around the Straits : estates on the East Coast of Sumatra, tin on the Malay peninsula, projects to cut through the isthmus of Kra. Xavier Brau de Saint-Pol Lias (1840-1914) found himself at the intersection of these enterprises which, in Sumatra, failed. His own attempt, called Colons- Explorateurs, established south of Deli, went bad. He tried to take advantage of the Dutch pacification of Aceh to renew the estates there but he did not imagine that the war would be endless. Supported in France by the movement which brought together geography and colonization, he represents a modernized version of the explorer who comes into contact with populations, methodically collects and then, on the wave of the adventure novel, markets his experience to assure its deserved celebrity through his talks, his articles and his books.

The Swiss artist Auguste de Molins is known for his travelogue in the Dutch Indies first published in Le Tour du monde (1864) and translated into Dutch two years later. The circumstances of his stay in Java (1858-1861) are unclear. His unconventional personality and his traveling habits allowed him to observe closely the daily life of the common people of Java ; consequently he reacted against the colonial oppression and all manifestations of violence. Along with Auguste Borget he represents a new generation of artist-travelers.

Pierre Labrousse, Institut national des Langues et Civilisations orientales, Paris L'entrée des artistes
Oil painting, despite earlier forms that can be found in Javanese craftsmanship, is a modern creation. The paramount promoter of this new type of art was Raden Saleh, who was the first painter to publicize the position of the artist. His particular way of performing his trade, in the context of colonial society and of the Yogyakarta kraton is analysed in the first part of the article. Another reason for the prestige attached to painting was found in the social origin of pre-war and independence-era artists. These generations of lesser priyayi artists were aware that the ideology of nationalism that they had taken up was a way to recover an eminent position in the new society. As new painting academies were established in universities, this trend intensified and resulted in the emergence of a new kind of power, that of discourses on painting. Regarding their relation to politics, artists were part of the prince's court under Soekarno, as well as under the New Order, although in a less personal way.

Pierre Labrousse, Institut national des Langues et Civilisation orientales, Paris
Raden Istigno Kartodidjojo (1921-1999). À la recherche d'un sublime (adïluhung) javanais
This Javanese painter, whose life (1921-1999) spanned the major part of the 20th century, has left a relatively small production. In his paintings, a profuse nature and overloaded background clearly point at Balinese influence, but the themes, elaborated in wayang style, are drawn from Javanese mythological tradition. Although it misleadingly looks like decorative art, and behind even the veiled animism stressed by the almost oppressive importance of nature, the scenes elected by the painter and interpreted in complex compositions have an immediate political significance that must be understood in the light of an ancestral philosophy.

Pierre Labrousse
The term of plesetan describes several types of puns in the Javanese culture. It has to be defined as much by a linguistic typology as by its function of communication : rupture of conventions, surprise effect, triggering of laughter and the assertion of complicity between the group of laughers. In the 90s, this form of pun, combined to the traditional theatre (ketoprak plesetan), to the invention of anti-governmental abbreviations and postmodenists ideas, enables to fill, under cover of an adherence to the traditional Javanese culture, the space of subversive laughter. It will even experience with President Abdurrahman Wahid, famous for his jokes, a sort of self-destructive peak : making jokes about himself Gus Dur becomes self-destructive.