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Art, Architecture, Music
The Art of Balinese Crafts
Bali is one of the best places
in the world to explore an amazing variety of crafts. Bali’s
artisans produce an overwhelming variety of items, ranging
from elaborately carved and painted masks used to bring
power and passion to traditional dance and drama to woven
cloths imbued with the spirit of ancient ritual and the
beauty of age old techniques. Bali boasts among its ranks of
talented local craftspeople stone carvers and seamstresses,
silversmiths and woodworkers, as well as serving as a market
for crafts imported from all over the Indonesian
archipelago.
Cloths of Power and Beauty
Some of the best known and most beautiful of Balinese crafts
are the traditional woven cloths. Used as clothing to wear
to ceremonial events or as ritual decorations, many of these
hand made fabrics are believed by the Balinese to possess
not just aesthetic value but spiritual power as well. By
dressing in traditional cloths, the Balinese assert their
own unique cultural identity, distinguishing themselves both
from other Indonesian ethnic groups and from the hordes of
shorts and T-shirt clad tourists invading their island.
Cloths also serve ceremonial purposes as well, their cotton
and metallic threads thought to be imbued with the power to
strengthen and protect their wearers and their bright colors
symbolizing different aspects of the Hindu cosmology. On
important ritual occasions, not only humans will be wrapped
in these cloths, but temple pavilions and shrines to the
gods as well.
There are many different
kinds of cloths woven in Bali. Some of the most stunning
traditional fabrics are the songket cloths, which
weave gold and silver threads into cotton fabric to create
complex geometric forms or representations of flowers,
animals, or humans. These cloths were traditionally woven
and worn by women of high caste households, used for special
ritual occasions to demonstrate the status of the wearer. In
modern Bali, where the caste distinctions of olden days are
rapidly being eclipsed by the power of a newly wealthy
middle class, these special cloths are coveted by anyone
with the means to afford them. Similar in glittery appeal to
the songket cloths are those known as prada.
These fabrics are first woven from cotton or silk and then a
decorative design is applied using gold or silver leaf and
glue.
Some of the most popular
cloths among Balinese and foreign fabric fans alike are the
traditional woven ikat cloths, also known as endek.
These cloths are made by dyeing the weft threads and then
weaving them together with the warp threads into complex
patterns. Ikat cloths often use geometric patterns,
or highly stylized figures of mythical heroes or animals.
Cloths made with traditional vegetable dyes are especially
beautiful, but are becoming more and more rare as weavers
work to meet the rising demands of the tourism market for
these stunning traditional works.
The most famous of Bali’s
cloths are the rare geringsing cloths, made only in
Tenganan, an isolated village in the highlands of the
island. The inhabitants of Tenganan are known as the Bali
Aga, and they are said to be the original inhabitants of
Bali. These cloths they produce are double ikat, in
which both the warp and weft threads are dyed with natural
dyes prior to weaving. Making these cloths is an incredibly
difficult and time consuming process, requiring great skill
and patience on the part of the weaver. Teganan is one of
the few places in Asia where such cloths are made, and the
techniques for weaving them are closely guarded, making the
few pieces available for sale collector’s items of great
value.
Besides these traditional
Balinese cloths, there is also a wide and colorful variety
of more modern fabrics available in Bali, from gossamer
jewel toned silks to wax-dyed batiks imported from Java to
cheap and cheerful beach sarongs in bright contemporary
designs.
The Wonders of Wood and
Stone
Some of the most delightful and spirited crafts to be found
on Bali are carvings sculpted from wood and stone. For those
who love the look and feel of fine grained tropical woods,
one can find everything from intricately carved wooden doors
and unabashedly romantic four poster beds to whimsical
painted figurines in all colors and designs imaginable. For
those entranced by the antique appearance of hand chiseled
stone, one can find statues portraying mythical beasts, gods
and demons that look equally at home in a fine art gallery
and a special corner of a garden.
The art of carving wood in
shapes to please the spirit and the eye has long been known
in Bali. In the precolonial heyday of the traditional
Balinese royal kingdoms, master craftsmen would be summoned
to the courts to turn tawny colored teak, mahogany and ebony
wood and richly perfumed sandalwood into intricately carved
panels, doors, beds and ceremonial pavilions. Working with
the patience and dedication of one who serves the higher
powers of gods and kings, these talented artists would bring
the wood to life, sculpting exquisite scenes of flowers,
birds and mythological beasts. Woodcarvers were also revered
and respected for their ability to create magically charged
items used for ritual purposes, such as the Barong figures
used in the sacred dramas of good and evil or statues of
gods and demons that were supernaturally empowered with the
spirits of the deities they were created to represent. The
carving of masks for the sacred masked dances was also a
craft thought to require not just a superb sense of artistry
but unusual spiritual strength. Masks that depict the
deities are thought to be magically charged (tenget)
and the carver, dancer and owner of the mask must observe
certain ritual precautions lest the power of the mask be
aroused in a negative direction, causing harm to their
creator. To make a sacred mask, the carver must first make
offerings to appease the spirits lingering around the tree
he will cut down to procure the wood. He will then consult
the traditional Balinese calendar to determine an auspicious
day for undertaking the painstaking work of shaping,
carving, sanding and painting the wood by hand, in a process
that may take several weeks to complete. Once the mask is
finished, another set of offerings is made to establish
harmonious relationships with the spirit of the mask, and
ritual care will continue to be taken to ensure that the
magical object does not become offended, including keeping
it wrapped away in a safe spot and making regular offerings
to it on certain powerful days.
In today’s Bali,
woodcarvers are still respected members of society, although
their role has, for the most part, shifted to a more secular
one. Some carvers have become world famous artists, using
traditional materials to create powerful statements on art,
life and the future of Balinese society. Others have joined
the new class of tourism entrepreneurs, carving a
cosmopolitan menagerie of whimsical animals and fanciful
figurines that cater to a growing market for authentic
Balinese folk art. Yet still others prefer to practice their
craft according to age old traditions, bringing the wood to
life to create spiritually potent objects that please the
eye and soul, humans and gods with their power and beauty.
Balinese stone carving as
well developed as a religious service, with master craftsmen
commissioned to transform the island’s soft volcanic local
stone into the festival of intricate forms that covers the
walls of temples and shrines. Unlike in other places around
the world where religious buildings are hushed, solemn
spaces, a Balinese temple is a riot of decorative activity,
with stone sculptures one of the most impressive ways in
which the Balinese show respect to the gods through the
creation of beauty. In fact, stone carving remains one of
the few traditional crafts in Bali that has, for the most
part, escaped the inevitable commercialization that a
booming tourist market for handicrafts brings. For the
average traveler, a tropical print sarong or a pair of
silver earrings is an easy to pack and carry souvenir. But
one person’s burden is another’s bliss, and for the
traveler willing to bear a few extra kilos in their luggage,
beautiful unique bargains abound.
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