People roaming the streets of Indonesia were not the conventional subject matter for paintings in the colonial Dutch East Indies. The beauty of the country remained the greatest inspiration for foreign artists and a handful of indigenous artists working in the first half of the 20th century. They commonly depicted the beautiful dancers, lush tropical vegetation and the majestic portraitures works as the Mooie Indie (Beautiful Indonesia) school, whose artist were obsessed with the idealised image of the country, and oblivious to the harsh realities of a country stricken poverty and corruption. For Affandi, his inspiration comes constantly from the people he knows in street and he painted them with his fervent brush strokes, inundating his subjects with such emotions that every work screams out the personality of the artist. "So there I was sitting on the kitchen Floor, dripping wet and then I started to draw with my fingers in the mud that had formed on the dirt floor. That is my first memory of painting!" (Astri Wright, Soul, Spirit, and Mountain: Preoccupations of Contemporary Indonesian Painters, Oxford University Press, Kuala Lumpur, 1994, p. 110).

AFFANDI (Indonesia 1907-1990)

Pohon Beringin (Banyan tree)

Details

AFFANDI (Indonesia 1907-1990)
Pohon Beringin (Banyan tree)
signed with monogram and dated 'A, 1968' (lower right)
oil on canvas
57 x 54 in. (154 x 137 cm.)

Lot Essay

"By the late 1950s, Affandi had consolidated the expressionist style that is distinctive of his practice. One might argue that Affandi invested in his brand of expressionism a sense of the dramatic in the impassioned urgency of his execution and the provocative tensions of his palette. That Affandi's preference in subject matter often tended towards the spectacular, the wild and the emotive is also true; these qualities were fodder for his dramatic vision. For the self-confessed expressionist painter, art making was an emotive expression of feelings and the experience of the moment. "When I paint I have to do it non-stop. I just follow my feelings. I cannot stop. I have to go on". (Joanna Lee, "Affandi - A Hunger to Paint" in 12 ASEAN ARTISTS, Balai Seni Lukis Negara 2000, the artists and authors, Kuala Lumpur, 2000, p. 11).

The Banyan tree as a symbol of the creative power for the Indonesians is indeed portrayed as 'the spectacular, the wild and the emotive'. The twirling and swirling of the tree is treated with such power that the outbursts of staccato stabs and rapid flourishes of paint directly from the tube to the canvas are readily felt by us the audience.

"When I paint I have to do it non-stop. I just follow my feelings. I cannot stop. I have to go on".
- Affandi

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