Affandi

Raka Sumichan (Acquired directly from the artist)

Private Collection, Indonesia

Raka Sumichan, Dr Umar Kayam, Affandi, Yayasan Bina Lestari Budaya, Jakarta, 1987, colorplate 49, p 97

This work is in very good overall condition as viewed. The paint layers are healthy overall. There are very few cracks to paint at areas of very thick impasto, consistent with the age of the work and only visible upon very close inspection. Examination under ultraviolet light reveals no sign of restoration. Framed.
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"When I paint I have to do it non-stop. I just follow my feelings. I cannot stop. I have to go on".
- Affandi

Before Bali was a breeding ground for local painting workshops, Affandi would assemble budding artists under big, bushy Banyan trees to initiate dialogue, exchange philosophies, and ultimately, build a community of literati.  The Banyan tree was a symbol of creative power that had a very deep impact on the artist, an individual who dedicated his life to articulating a true modern Indonesian identity within fine art. Under this enveloping umbrella of foliage, fresh ideas were shared, people were enlightened, and a fervent group of young intellectuals was born.

Affandi was born around the year 1907 to a modest, working class family. Due to the dedication of his father, a surveyor at a sugar factory, Affandi studied at the Dutch school and befriended people from the educated and elite class. Consequently he became a well-traveled individual, and was probably aware of the historical connotations and meanings associated with this glorious tree. Across myriad cultures, religions and eons, the Banyan tree has personified knowledge, enlightenment and life. In Indonesia, particularly, it is part of the nation’s coat of arms, symbolizing the unity of this vast archipelago. A country consisting of thousands of islands, cultures, tribes and dialects, Indonesia is metaphorically akin the Banyan tree, a single entity with numerous far-flung roots. The essence of this potent tree, with its infinite connotations, resonated deeply within this erudite painter, stimulating him and providing the impetus to bring it to life in his own work.

In Affandi’s composition, the Banyan tree stands as an arresting, grand, and magnificent being ensconcing a market of vendors below it. Unlike Egon Schiele’s Four Trees, which subsists in a cold, barren landscape, Affandi’s Pasar di Bawah Beringin is teeming with the immeasurable life of a jungle. The dwindling autumn leaves, fiery sky, and the formidable loneliness in Schiele’s scene is uninviting, existing in its own space. Analogously, Affandi’s colossal tree attracts other forms of life below it. It serves as an awning, filtering the sunlight above it and casting the setting in a greenish shadow. Though the sheer size of this gargantuan tree is physically impressive, its hefty canopy appears to philosophically protect the citizens beneath it. It is sturdy and dependable, attracting village folk who continue with their circadian routine under its vigilant, perennial watch.

The tactile nature of his impasto is akin to that visible in works such as Landscape with Three Trees and a House by post-impressionist artist Vincent Van Gogh. Both artists being enraptured by arboreal subjects, Affandi and Van Gogh seem to discover a physical manifestation of the spirituality that they believe dwells in all nature. They employ thick, visceral paint to delineate the swirling motion of the foliage, ultimately enlivening their ancient and writhing forms. While Van Gogh’s trees are vulnerable to the whims of the cool winds, revealed by the rustling motion of the leaves, Affandi’s dense umbrage is resilient and has more equilibrium. Its bountiful, weighty verdure dangles downwards, following the course of gravity. The inclusion of an abode in Van Gogh’s composition suggests the presence of human life, concomitant to that extant in Affandi’s market. These avid painters rejoice in the surging forces that pulsate through the earth by depicting this prolific symbol of nature and its capacity to coexist symbiotically with community.

An expressionist artist, Affandi paints in a wild and unrestrained manner, producing works that begin as an emotive stream of consciousness, so telling of his intimate psyche. The modus operandi of this self-taught painter is distinctive and renowned. Entranced during the course of producing his images, he would squeeze oil paint from the tubes onto raw canvas, diminishing the barrier between the painting and the self by eradicating the need of a paintbrush. Subsequently, he would use his palms to disperse the wet pigments across the surface of the work, providing it with a sincerely humanistic quality saturated with his personal dynamism. Upon viewing this striking painting, it is evident that the rapt artist painted with the fervor of an Action Painter, indicating that for Affandi, the performative act of painting was an art in itself, one that provided a vital element to the final work.

Considered the supreme Asian expressionist painter during the mid-20^th century, yet someone who mastered naturalism beforehand, Affandi renders the dynamic quality of this tree to precision. Painting this during his transitional phase, when he began deviating from technical verisimilitude and developing his own brand of expressionism, Affandi captures the copious nature of this tree, at once, accurately and histrionically. Possessing a wondrous ability to exist for centuries, the Banyan tree stands as a splendid embodiment of immortality. It commences its life as an epiphyte that grows on another plant and sprouts from the fissures and crevices of a host tree. Its very frondescence suggests life within life, reincarnating across the ages.