Wayang-Painting
Batuan-Style
Siam-Painting
Modern Gallery
Bibliography

The Wayang painting is the classic, original Indonesian painting. Wayang means shadow and is derived from Indonesian shadow theater Wayang Kulit. The presentation of two-dimensional, stylized figures subject to a strict iconographic order and corresponds to the representation of the leather puppets from Wayang Kulit.
Just as the shadow theater also the Wayang pictures are counted among the "Tellers pictures". They tell of historical events, from epics like the Ramayana, Mahabharata, Bhagavadgita or local folk stories. At earlier times they were produced either for the royal court, for temple ceremonies or for the aristocray. They had therefore a parent or didactic function.
Wayang painting of Kamasan style are now produced in Kamasan, Bali. Its history dates to the 17th Century. A familiar example are the paintings in the judicial building "Kerta Gosa" in Klungkung. Before 20th Century, the Arts were sponsored by the Kings. Today, the demand of Kamasan – Pictures is dominated by private collectors and the touristic art market. The images are still painted exactly as it was under very strict and complex iconographic rules. The knowledge of the precise technique and the meanings will be passed from generation to generation within families.

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The Batuan style is also a traditional style from Bali. Until the 60s picture were rather painted in the classical style: They are dark, mysterious images that emerged from traditional fables and legends with their supernatural world of forms. Encouraged by European painters such as Walter Spies, Arie Smit and Hans Snel the artists later began to present also issues of daily life. In Batuan paintings all items are reduced and reproduced. The forms are not clearly separated, and the screen is painted evenly and minimalistly. The complex images must be examined accurate at first. But then a whole narrative world will be created within an image. The viewer might get the impression that he would experience the scene from the sky or from another world, and as if a life would not be sufficient to cover all the activities of the various creatures and their worlds.

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In this gallery you can find Thai painting in the traditional style. As a country that adapts Western modernity in a rapid pace, Thailand is located in a cultural transformation, which also strongly influences the arts. While the contemporary painting according to the international influence of diverse and evolving advances rapidly, classic paintings, as the inner walls of the royal palace in Bangkok decorate, are very hard to find.
The images, gathered in our "Siam" gallery, are painted in classic style and show in its beautiful peculiar way traditional festivities or local village scenes.

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Unlike the other galleries, we offer in this gallery pictures in which a merger between the traditional ideas and modern western painting takes place. Many young Asian artists shape a new identity by combining traditional themes with modern painting. The pictures in this gallery catch with their warm shades of the local mood of life on a tropical island in Southeast Asia. The painter has deliberately selected the colors severely restricted. With a few harmonic tones, each image creates its own mood.

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In the following there are listed literary sources, where the interested reader can learn more about the Asian and especially the Southeast Asian art and painting: