Lot Essay
As the author of the well regarded Island of Bali, published in 1937, Jose Miguel Covarrubias is deeply interested in the anthropological and archeological subjects of Bali. The immense research as well as study done on the part of the author are evident as the book is full of insighful observation which is in turn supplemanted with a rice collection of drawings as typifies by the drawings of lot 16 and 17.
The uncanny power of penetrating through the deceptively simple lines of drawings is achieved with the artist's ability of empathy as a personal friend of Covarrubias, I Gusti comments "I never tired of answering him because he cared deeply about our culture. He understood everything there was to know about Bali. I have never forgotten the brother from far-away Mexico: dark-skinned Miguel with the laughing brown eyes, who looked every bit as Balinese as the next man dressed in kamben with flower behind his ear. To us he seemed to have a Balinese soul" (Adriana Williams, Covarrubias, University of Texas Press, 1994, p.63.).
The uncanny power of penetrating through the deceptively simple lines of drawings is achieved with the artist's ability of empathy as a personal friend of Covarrubias, I Gusti comments "I never tired of answering him because he cared deeply about our culture. He understood everything there was to know about Bali. I have never forgotten the brother from far-away Mexico: dark-skinned Miguel with the laughing brown eyes, who looked every bit as Balinese as the next man dressed in kamben with flower behind his ear. To us he seemed to have a Balinese soul" (Adriana Williams, Covarrubias, University of Texas Press, 1994, p.63.).