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Lot Essay
In 1956, Indonesian modern painter Sindudarsono Sudjojono painted his first portrait of Rosalina “Rose” Wilhelmina Poppack, an Indo-European woman that he met in 1951 while on his way to attend the 3rd World Festival of Youth and Students in Berlin. At this time, Sudjojono had been elected into parliamentary office and Rose would stop by his home in Yogyakarta, while she visited her husband who was attending Gajah Mada University’s School of Medicine. That same year, Sudjojono painted The Ruins and The Piano (Lot 50), one of his most personal and unique paintings to date at this point in his life.
Sudjojono is known for his criticism of what he termed Mooi Indie artists, who were Dutch and local naturalist artists known for a traditional adherence to depicting idealised representations of the tranquil scenery and beautiful exotic scenery in order to attract tourists to the region. For Sudjojono, this artistic style was corrupted by its association with colonialism, and he advocated instead, a theory and philosophy of modern Indonesian art that came from the soul. To him, painting was an act of revealing one’s soul and making it visible. He eventually developed his own expressionistic style that resembled the loose brushstrokes of French artist Édouard Manet. Much like the impressionists, he believed that artists should not be beholden to conventional techniques, traditions or visual devices, but should stay true to their inner selves. In order to produce works of outstanding quality, one had to transpose their soul on to the canvas so as to imbue the works with inestimable value.
Rendered in Sudjojono’s trademark realist style, The Ruins and The Piano has a visceral quality to it that is simultaneously realistic and surreal, differing and far from a conventional landscape. Much like the surreal landscapes painted by Salvador drawn influence from. The man stands among a set of ruins that have been stripped to their skeletal frames, leaving only a beam lying across a set of Doric columns and a windowed wall. Ripped up tires, rubble and scraps of wood frames from either a painting or a window lie strewn across the ground. In the middle of the painting, a delicate lone bamboo pole seemingly untouched by the chaos around it, cuts vertically across the horizontal composition of the work – a strong visual device. From the top hangs a yellow birdcage, striking a stark contrast against the cobalt blue sky. Although the significance of this cage is unknown, it is evidently important to the symbolism and narrative of The Ruins and The Piano; perhaps it is a visual representation of the responsibilities of Sudjojono’s reality that he feels restricted by.
To the right of the bamboo pole is a piano that sits hidden among a bed of rubble. This piano is a symbol of Rose, who was a mezzosoprano singer and owned a piano at home. It is clear that The Ruins and The Piano is a symbolic landscape of Sudjojono’s inner world, left in a shambles and twisted in turmoil as he deliberates his actions: to face reality or to give in to his feelings? Indeed on the left of the painting, a male figure strides towards the distance, led by a diminishing row of electricity poles that disappear beyond the painting. He seems to be leaving everything behind him, advancing towards a great unknown with strident confidence and determination. It is interesting that Sudjojono depicts both men in the same yellow shirt and khaki pants, making the viewer compare and contrast the two: one in a state of stasis, and the other progressing forward. This visual device evokes yet again the uncanny and emphasises his inner conflict of being in two minds and torn between his different choices.
A few years after The Ruins and The Piano was completed, Rose entered into a regional singing competition Bintang Radio, in which she won second place in the Great Jakarta district. Sudjojono’s romantic association with her affected his political career when members of the Parti Komunis Indonesia (Indonesian Communist Party) demanded he end his relationship with Rose or face expulsion from parliament. Sudjojono had already made his known his intention in another work of 1965, Sodom dan Gomorrah, in which he inscribed the following in Dutch and Bahasa:
I remember people say,
'Yesterday is yesterday,
Tomorrow is tomorrow,
Before this day passes, Let us just eat now, Mama!'
It expresses his determination and his unflinching desire to be with Rose despite his intensely chaotic feelings. It was thus unsurprising that he chose to leave his political career to be with the woman he loved. The Ruins and The Piano marks the beginning of a defining moment in his life and it is undeniable that we can definitely see Sudjojono’s soul laid out across the canvas, before our very eyes.
Sudjojono is known for his criticism of what he termed Mooi Indie artists, who were Dutch and local naturalist artists known for a traditional adherence to depicting idealised representations of the tranquil scenery and beautiful exotic scenery in order to attract tourists to the region. For Sudjojono, this artistic style was corrupted by its association with colonialism, and he advocated instead, a theory and philosophy of modern Indonesian art that came from the soul. To him, painting was an act of revealing one’s soul and making it visible. He eventually developed his own expressionistic style that resembled the loose brushstrokes of French artist Édouard Manet. Much like the impressionists, he believed that artists should not be beholden to conventional techniques, traditions or visual devices, but should stay true to their inner selves. In order to produce works of outstanding quality, one had to transpose their soul on to the canvas so as to imbue the works with inestimable value.
Rendered in Sudjojono’s trademark realist style, The Ruins and The Piano has a visceral quality to it that is simultaneously realistic and surreal, differing and far from a conventional landscape. Much like the surreal landscapes painted by Salvador drawn influence from. The man stands among a set of ruins that have been stripped to their skeletal frames, leaving only a beam lying across a set of Doric columns and a windowed wall. Ripped up tires, rubble and scraps of wood frames from either a painting or a window lie strewn across the ground. In the middle of the painting, a delicate lone bamboo pole seemingly untouched by the chaos around it, cuts vertically across the horizontal composition of the work – a strong visual device. From the top hangs a yellow birdcage, striking a stark contrast against the cobalt blue sky. Although the significance of this cage is unknown, it is evidently important to the symbolism and narrative of The Ruins and The Piano; perhaps it is a visual representation of the responsibilities of Sudjojono’s reality that he feels restricted by.
To the right of the bamboo pole is a piano that sits hidden among a bed of rubble. This piano is a symbol of Rose, who was a mezzosoprano singer and owned a piano at home. It is clear that The Ruins and The Piano is a symbolic landscape of Sudjojono’s inner world, left in a shambles and twisted in turmoil as he deliberates his actions: to face reality or to give in to his feelings? Indeed on the left of the painting, a male figure strides towards the distance, led by a diminishing row of electricity poles that disappear beyond the painting. He seems to be leaving everything behind him, advancing towards a great unknown with strident confidence and determination. It is interesting that Sudjojono depicts both men in the same yellow shirt and khaki pants, making the viewer compare and contrast the two: one in a state of stasis, and the other progressing forward. This visual device evokes yet again the uncanny and emphasises his inner conflict of being in two minds and torn between his different choices.
A few years after The Ruins and The Piano was completed, Rose entered into a regional singing competition Bintang Radio, in which she won second place in the Great Jakarta district. Sudjojono’s romantic association with her affected his political career when members of the Parti Komunis Indonesia (Indonesian Communist Party) demanded he end his relationship with Rose or face expulsion from parliament. Sudjojono had already made his known his intention in another work of 1965, Sodom dan Gomorrah, in which he inscribed the following in Dutch and Bahasa:
I remember people say,
'Yesterday is yesterday,
Tomorrow is tomorrow,
Before this day passes, Let us just eat now, Mama!'
It expresses his determination and his unflinching desire to be with Rose despite his intensely chaotic feelings. It was thus unsurprising that he chose to leave his political career to be with the woman he loved. The Ruins and The Piano marks the beginning of a defining moment in his life and it is undeniable that we can definitely see Sudjojono’s soul laid out across the canvas, before our very eyes.