Provenance:
Private Collection, Indonesia

ABOUT THE WORK

I ndonesian artist Affandi has been referred to as “a towering figure in the history of Indonesian modern art.” Affandi is celebrated for his avant-garde style and intrepidness as a visual artist, earning him the respect and admiration of many from his homeland and the international art arena. Born in Cirebon, West Java in 1907, he was the son of R. Koesoema, a surveyor at a local sugar factory. Affandi finished his secondary studies in Jakarta, and subsequently quit his academics in a dauntless move to pursue his passion for the arts. Beginning in 1934, Affandi would begin teaching himself the rudiments of art, drawing purely from his inherently painterly instincts. In the 1950s, Affandi began venturing into expressionism. The 1953 piece “Carrying the First Grandchild” revealed his innovative technique now known as “squeezing the tube;” he painted by directly squeezing the paint out of its tube. As opposed to the idealistic Mooi-Indië style that dominated the Indonesian art landscape of the first half of the 20th century, Affandi strived to express his home country in its most unadulterated aspect, depicting both its innate charm and dismal state. Affandi’s frankness in his art and groundbreaking attitude towards expressionism garnered praise at the 1954 Venice Biennale. In the January 12, 1953 issue of the TIME Magazine, Affandi’s working methods and artistic ethics were described as follows: “Affandi never learned to use a palette, [for he] dislikes brushes. Instead, he squeezes paint onto his thumb, and then smears it around the canvas. He will often spend a week studying a subject, but the actual painting seldom takes longer than 90 furious minutes. ‘After about an hour,’ he says, ‘I usually feel my emotions declining. It’s better to stop then. The painting is finished.’” If the Philippines boasts of Fernando Amorsolo’s mastery of capturing the magnificence of our tropical sunlight, Indonesia prides itself of Affandi’s experimental approach in encapsulating the dazzling luminescence of their own matahari. In this work, Affandi depicts the sun as the source of all energy and life. Here, Affandi ingeniously plays with the element he has come to be identified with. His whimsical approach in manipulating and balancing the physical and emotional attributes of the subject is brought to the fore.