Raden Saleh (1807–1880)

Raden Saleh Sjarif Boestaman (1807 or 1811 - April 23, 1880) is one of the best known painters from Indonesia and a pioneer of modern Indonesian art.

He was considered to be the first modern artist from the Dutch East Indies (now Indonesia), and his paintings corresponded with nineteenth-century romanticism which was popular in Europe at the time. He also expressed his cultural roots and inventiveness in his work.

Early life and career

Raden Saleh was born into a noble Javanese family. He was the grandson of Sayyid Abdullah Bustaman on his mother's side. His father was Sayyid Husen bin Alwi bin Awal bin Yahya, an Indonesian of Arab descent.

European sojourn

Young Raden Saleh was first taught in Bogor by the Belgian artist A.J. Payen. Payen acknowledged the youth's talent, and persuaded the colonial government of the Netherlands to send Raden Saleh to the Netherlands to study art. He arrived in Europe in 1829 and began to study under Cornelius Kruseman and Andries Schelfhout.

It was from Kruseman that Raden Saleh studied his skills in portraiture, and later was accepted at various European courts where he was assigned to do portraits. While in Europe, in 1836 Saleh became the first indigenous Indonesian to be initiated into Freemasonry Freemasonry in Indonesia. From 1839, he spent five years at the court of Ernst I, Grand Duke of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha, who became an important patron.

From Schelfhout, Raden Saleh furthered his skills as a landscape painter. Raden Saleh visited several European cities, as well as Algiers. In The Hague, a lion tamer allowed Raden Saleh to study his lion, and from that his most famous painting of animal fights was created, which subsequently brought fame to the artist.

Many of his paintings were exhibited at the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam. Several of his paintings were destroyed when the Colonial Dutch pavilion in Paris was burnt in 1931.

Return

The artist returned to Indonesia in 1851 after living in Europe for 20 years. Here, he worked as conservator for the colonial collection of government art. He continued painting portraits of the Javanese aristocracy, and many more landscape paintings. He died in 1880, after returning from a second stay in Europe.

Diponegoro

One of Raden Saleh's paintings that gained popularity for its historical value was the 'Capture of Prince Diponegoro', which depicted the famous betrayal by the colonial government of the famous Javanese prince. It was returned to Indonesia from the Dutch royal Palace in 1978. It is currently displayed at the President's Palace Museum in Jakarta.

In the painting, Raden Saleh is said to show his views of the colonialist governments by deliberately making the Dutch look pompous and proud, but somehow imbalanced. The Javanese, on the other hand, were depicted as somehow more balanced in composition. It is also believed^[ that one of the Javanese figures in the painting was a self-portrait.

The German anthropologist and historian Werner Kraus wrote a book entitled "Raden Saleh- The Beginning of Modern Indonesian Painting" (Afterhours Books, 2012), available in English, Indonesian and German after conducting many years of extensive research, as discussed in the Jakarta Globe of 14 December, 2012, p. 25.