Abdul Aziz’s Nude figure, part of the “Abdul Aziz in Rome, 1959-1965” exhibition at the Italian Institute of Culture, Jakarta. JP/Anissa S. Febrina
Take an artist to a city where the aesthetic standards were once set. It doesn’t matter if the artist becomes famous or not, what matters is the apparent impact of the environment where their art matured.
That’s the basic story of Abdul Aziz. He never considered himself a maestro with a capital M, nor did he ever intend to be.
For Aziz, what matters is art. And Rome, the city where the artists studied for five years, has had a lot to with shaping Aziz’s art.
“Rome is what made Abdul Aziz a different kind of artist, naturally open, naturally curious and, much more importantly, absolutely not market-oriented,” said Italian Ambassador to Indonesia Roberto Palmieri at the launch of the “Abdul Aziz in Rome, 1959-1965” exhibition at the Italian Institute of Culture.
Among more than a handful of oil paintings and dozens of sketches are letters and documents that serve as evidence of Aziz, the painter and traveler.
“In this exhibition I would like to illustrate the enormous significance of the five years Aziz spent in Italy, studying, seeing great art, traveling, drawing, drawing, drawing, and painting, painting, painting,” said wife Mary Northmore-Aziz, who curated the exhibition.
“And becoming a truly cosmopolitan artist.”
Despite already having an inherent talent with oil on canvas, Aziz’s Roman years are apparent in his paintings. Learning the classics from his Roman environment, Aziz then blended those features with the Indonesian aesthetic richness.
Among his works, the Madonna series — 1973’s Madonna and Child and 1995’s Bali Madonna and
Child — was considered his “point of arrival”.
Self Portrait, by Abdul Aziz. JP/Anissa S. Febrina
“With a sensitive and receptive mind, Abdul Aziz was able to make the Italian sense of composition and mastery of perspective his own,” Italian Institute of Culture deputy director Livia Raponi said.
“Such delicate encounter can be found in the later two beautiful Madonnas… an ideal point of arrival of the journey of the artist.”
The two oil paintings are the best of Aziz’s take on mastering trompe l’oeil — tricking the eye by using the frame to create an illusion that his paintings seem to be three-dimensional figures coming out of
the frame.
This technique, combined with his appreciation of chiaroscuro and human anatomy, and his appreciation of the Balinese people, particularly women, have created some of the most impressive and enduring images of Asia ever, Neka Art Museum, which hosts most of Aziz’s paintings, reveals of the artist.
“Like so many of his generation and the ones bracketing it, Aziz’s identity was simultaneously
ethno-local, regional, national and international, with each set of appropriate loyalties triggered and expressed at specific times,” Astri Wright wrote about the painter born in Purwokerto, Central Java,
in 1928.
Abdul Aziz’s Portrait of Teuku Cik Haji Mohamad Thayeb.JP/Anissa S. Febrina
In his 30s, Aziz was a restless student of the Yogyakarta Indonesian Academy of Fine Arts. He heard about an opportunity for an art scholarship and Italy and applied for it.
At 32, he finally arrived in Rome to study arts for five years at the Accademia di Belle Arti.
“Studying art in Rome, a city famous for its ruins and architectural monuments, from the classical period onward, and some of the most-lauded master artists in the history of European art, Aziz must’ve felt both alien and overwhelmed,” Wright said.
“Perhaps also, by extension and parallel, he felt at home.”
The sketches Aziz brought back from Rome are, besides a number of landscape and architectural sketches, mostly studies of people — faces, figures, hands; European women and men in various streetside interactions.
“One European influence on Aziz… was the idea of the female figure as a central motif in art, in the whole range of manners and modes we know from European art history — from icon and sacred mother divinity, to mythological or political personifications in grand narratives,” Wright said.
The watercolor Nude series and oil paintings of models are part of the remnants of his European art years. Women, since his return from Rome, have been Aziz’s centre of attention. His years painting
in his studio in Ubud have resulted in more and more paintings of Balinese women.
Not so much sensually, though. Aziz presented women both as human beings and as icons of the best in human nature and in life, Wright added.
Abdul Aziz in Rome, 1959-1965
The education of an artist exhibition
runs until Dec. 5, 2009
The Italian Institute of Culture
Jl. HOS Cokroaminoto 117
Menteng – Central Jakarta
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