The Rhetoric of Paintings: Towards a History of Balinese Ideas, Imaginings and Emotions in the Late Nineteenth and Early Twentieth Centuries

Abstract


 
 
 Western historical scholarship has taught us much about Southeast Asia in the period between 1800 and 1940. This was a time when the insistent, intensifying and transforming influence of Dutch colonial society and its culture became widespread in Bali and more broadly in the archipelago. Much too has been written about the analytical framework of European histories of these times. In this essay I discuss Balinese paintings from this same period which shed light on how painters and their works spoke to their viewers both about how the Balinese knew, imagined, thought and felt about the world in which they lived and about the visual representation and communication of these ideas, imaginings and feelings through the medium of narrative paintings. In this paper I hope to draw attention to a number of historiographical issues concerning the reception of the ideas, imaginings and feelings conveyed in paintings. In particular I shall have some remarks to make about the role of philology in this regard.
 
 

Culture, Power Relations and Development of the Architectural Style: The Planning Precedent of Denpasar City

“…Saat terjadi puputan, puri hancur dan dijadikan kantor residen, sementara beberapa rumah tinggal keluarga puri dan pasar diubah menjadi alun-alun. Seperti halnya kawasan lainnya yang mendapatkan pengaruh yang besar dari pemerintah kolonial (Worsley, 2019), nampak jelas intervensi kolonial dalam menata kawasan pusat kota Denpasar mengikuti pola grid. Walaupun sumbu pempatan agung tetap dipertahankan dengan bentukan dimensi berbeda.…”

The rhetoric of paintings; the Balinese "Malat" and the prospect of a history of Balinese ideas, imaginings and emotions

“…In a series of earlier papers and published articles (Worsley 2014(Worsley , 2016a(Worsley , 2016b(Worsley , 2017a(Worsley , 2017b(Worsley , 2017c(Worsley , 2019a(Worsley , 2019b, I have discussed historiographical issues relevant to the interpretation of Balinese narrative paintings. The paintings are or were, as Hobart argues, like all forms of rhetorical exchange, sites of discussion and disputation (Hobart 2019: 23-24).…”

“…Worsley (2019a) discusses a play by Graaf Carel van Hogendorp celebrating a Dutch military victory over Buleleng in 1946 and an article by Rutger vanEck (1872), two nineteenth century commentaries on gender relationships in Bali in the mid-nineteenth.…”