Iny Chatra (20th Century) Balinese, Penestanan Oil on Canvas. Chatra was one of the early students of Ari Smit. The image shows rolling fields of green dotted with trees, full of working people and animals roaming throughout in the classic Ubud style. Signed bottom left. 

Overall Size: 31 1/2 x 40 in. 

Sight Size: 26 x 34 in. 

#5306  

In 1927 the German artist Walter Spies settled on the island of Bali, in what was then known as the Dutch East Indies, and immediately became fascinated by their culture. Throughout the 1930s Spies hosted many Western artists, actors, anthropologists, musicians and bohemian-types at his Villa, which spread an appreciation for the island’s beauty back to Europe. He was responsible for creating an orchestra there, as well as developing the Pita Maha artist collective alongside Dutch painter Rudolf Bonnet. Tragically, Spies died in 1942 along with numerous German prisoners who were rounded up by the British when the transport they were on was sunk by a Japanese bomb, but the allure of the island that he championed lived on. In 1956 a Dutch artist named Ari Smit first visited Bali and decided to make it his home, intrigued by the artistic evolution of Balinese artists who Spies had influenced. In the early 1960s Smit visited a local shrine established in the 10th Century by Dang Hyang Niratha, the Javanese priest who is regarded as the founder of Bali’s modern religious practices and rituals. The area was named Ubud, after the Balinese word for medicine, “Ubad.” Smit gave art supplies to some of the children in Penestanan, a village in Gianyar wedged between Gunung Lebah Tjampuhan Temple and the town of Sayan. The children received intial guidance from Smit and other Western artists, and went on to develop their own naive art, called “Young Artists Style.” The Agung Rai Fine Art Gallery on the outskirts of Ubud holds the largest exhibit of their pieces, but the vibrant busy canvases the people of Penestanan generated can be found in collections all over the world. The town of Penestanan is now known as the Young Artist Village, and is responsible for making the temples and lush surroundings one of the most sought-after tourist destinations on Earth.