(JP/Ricky Yudhistira)After decades of effort and hard work in researching the paintings of Raden Saleh, German scholar Werner Kraus curated a show of 40 oil paintings, sketches and paintings of the 19th-century Javanese maestro in Jakarta last year.

Kraus, who is also a lecturer and expert in Southeast Asian studies, has immersed himself in anything related to the painter for more than 30 years. Along with the exhibition, Kraus also produced a book titled Raden Saleh: The Beginning of Modern Indonesia Painting.

The 68-year-old’s first encounter with Raden Saleh took place in a library at Cornell University in the US, where Kraus received a master’s degree in modern Southeast Asian studies in 1976.

In reading a book about the maestro, Kraus learned that Raden Saleh spent a long time in Germany, especially in Coburg, which is near to where the scholar was born.

Kraus was fascinated by the fact. Since then, he has pursued the story of Raden Saleh, who lived in Europe over 180 years ago.

The art lover considered the exhibition as a gift to Indonesia, which he called his “second home”.

Kraus’ project on Raden Saleh isn’t over yet. Currently, he is still looking for a missing 300-page manuscript of the maestro’s diaries that was believed to have been destroyed during World War II.

Kraus has also plans to curate an exhibition on the art collection of Indonesia’s first president, Sukarno.

Here are the excerpts of an interview with Kraus regarding his latest book:

Question: What is the book about?

Answer: The book is about the life and works of Raden Saleh. I have tried to understand him as a child of his times. I believe that we can understand RS [Raden Saleh] and his art only after we have acquired a certain understanding of the times he was born into.

Since RS spent his youth in early colonial Java, grew up in an important time of European history and spent the last years of his life during the high noon of Dutch colonialism, it was important to study and research all these historical periods to understand his reactions to them.

Why did you choose to produce the book?

We organized the solo exhibition of RS’s works in June after we realized that his paintings had never been seen in Indonesia. I decided to write a book on Raden Saleh because nobody else was willing to do it.

What do you think of Raden Saleh?

RS was an exceptional personality and artist. He was the first educated Indonesian who made it to Europe, was the first who studied the arts, was the first who was able to speak at least four European languages and was the first who was fluent in two cultures: European and Javanese. He was the first modern Indonesian man.

What do you think of his artwork?

Technically, RS was a very accomplished painter. As good as or even better than his European colleagues. While he was living in Dresden, Germany, he created German Orientalism and so became part of German art history.

After he went back to Java he developed his own school of landscape painting. None of his contemporaries could equal on that. He was an accomplished artist, but after he returned to Java he was somehow isolated from international developments.

How did Saleh shape modern Indonesian painting?

There seems to be no visible connection between Raden Saleh and present day modern art. But without Raden Saleh, his students and the teaching material he had created, Indonesian art might have developed much more slowly.

In a way I see him as a great-grandfather. We have not much in common with our great-grandfathers, but without them we would not exist.

What were your sources?

My sources are letters and other writings by RS, colonial documents from Dutch archives, diaries, travelogues, the autobiographical writings of contemporaries, art historical discussions, historical writings on Java and finally his paintings.

What were your challenges in making the book?

The challenge was to keep on working without the clear prospects of finding a publisher. I could not find an Indonesian publishing house and no Indonesian collector was willing to support the book.

Some people think it is wrong that a book on Indonesia’s most important painter was done by a German and financed by German institutions. I would have been very happy if Indonesian support — intellectually and financially — would have been more forthcoming.

At the same time I believe that the nation of art knows no natives and no foreigners: Just art lovers. Raden Saleh is the best example of that.

What is your favorite painting of Raden Saleh?

Penangkapan Dipanegara [Arrest of Prince Dipenogoro]. This painting shows one of the most important moments in Indonesian history: The beginning of Dutch colonialism. But RS included a second meaning in this painting as well: The beginning of Indonesian resistance against colonialism.

Just look at the face of Dipanegara. You won’t see a defeated man, but a struggling one. Defeat and resistance — hope for a better future in freedom — are at the core of this painting. That’s why I like it best.

Do you have any plan to write another book?

I would like to write three books: one, on the topic of history in modern Indonesian art; second, about a number of European artists who came to Indonesia in the 1920 and 1930 and [later] influenced European art through their Indonesian experience; and third, a biography of Sudjojono [1913-1986].

Raden Saleh: The Beginning of Modern ndonesian Painting
Werner Kraus
Goethe-Institut Indonesien, 2012
357 pages

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