Ida Bagus Made Poleng (1915-1999)

Harvesting

signed and annotated 'Ida Bagus Made. / Ubud / Bali' (upper left)

tempera on canvas, 51x58,5 cm

Provenance:
-Auction, Larasati, Agung Rai Museum of Art (ARMA), Ubud, 5 April 2015, lot 90. -Auction, Larasati Auctioneers, Singapore, 28 July 2012, lot 13. -By descent to the present owner.

Ida Bagus Made Poleng (1915 – 1999) is known for his compositional ability. He once said: “Picture composition is easy for me, but colour composition is another matter”. This is a painting where he succeeded in both.

This seemingly simple scene of harvesting rice is masterly composed into a visual dialogue. The setting is a lush landscape with a distant mountain, and a closer hill with a traditional hut. At the left, a man is helping a woman balance a bundle of newly harvested rice on her head. Nearby, and watching them intently, another man is tying up rice bundles. As we move clockwise, a woman is cutting rice stalks while the man next to her is focused on her face. His admiring glance does not escape the attention of the man at the center. Moving clockwise: a young boy is watching his mother carry a bundle of rice across the field, while behind them, a man facing the canvas is walking in the opposite direction. The man is carrying two bundles of rice at either end of the pole which he has balanced over his right shoulder. To complete the circular composition: at the lower right a small boy, naked except for a cloth over his back, rides on a young cow. Behind the boy, a man balances two rice bundles on his shoulder, his right hand holding on to the bundle at the front, his left hand holding the rope of another cow at the bottom right corner of the painting.

As colouring did not come naturally to Ida Bagus Made Poleng, his works are usually black and white, monochromatic, or display muted colours. Exceptionally, in this painting, the colours are exuberant: befitting the happy occasion of a successful harvest. The harvesters are wearing festive outfits with beautiful, brightly coloured garments. The patterns on the sarongs are carefully drawn and their strong colours are well balanced by the yellow/rose color of the rice bundles. In this vibrant vista of rice harvesting, Ida Bagus Made has created a masterpiece of both composition and colour!

Peter Soemantri Widagdo