Mysterious Merapi by Indonesian Ernest Dezentjé

Somewhere halfway between Yogyakarta, Central-Java and the town of Semarang rises the impressive shape of the cloud-veiled volcano, Gunung Merapi, not to be confused with Gunung Marapi on Sumatra. This 2910-meter-high mountain is still an active volcano, a Mountain of Fire (from meru mountain and api fire) as can be seen from the constant smoke rising from the crater - and with an eruption as late as January 2024.

There is a spiritual belief in the area that Merapi houses one of the palaces used by the rulers of the spirit and that this palace is a spiritual counterpart to the?real, existing Sultanate (kraton in Javanese) ?of Yogyakarta. Whatever the belief, the silhouette of this mountain is a dominant element in the landscape and it is no wonder that Merapi has been the subject of many an artistic interest. ?

The painting above, with a curious signature containing the letters EDJ, is very likely made by Ernest Dezentjé (1885 Jatinegara – 1972 Jakarta), born into a ?French-Javanese family who in the first half of the 20th century was one of the important Indonesian painters, first of the Dutch East Indies and later of the Republic of Indonesia.

Dezentjé was?a self-taught artist, well known for his landscapes, precise cityscapes and lively market scenes. He was a member of the 'Bataviaasche Kunstkring’ in Batavia (now Jakarta).

Like the works of many of his colleagues like Dutch Gerard Pieter Adolfs (1898 – 1968) and Willem Hofker (1902-1981), Belgian Adrien-Jean Le Mayeur (1880- 1958) and Austrian Roland Strasser (1895-1974), Dezentjés shimmering rendering of the Indonesian countryside is often associated with the early ‘Indonesian School’ of painting coined ‘Mooi-Indi?’ (Beautiful Dutch East Indies), which promoted a romanticized picture of the Indonesian landscape.

As they? painted wide vistas showing local life in the villages, lush rice fields under the setting sun, volcanoes immersed in golden sunshine, or beautiful bare-breasted dancing and bathing women, these ‘Mooi-Indi?’ artists preferred to only present the idyll and the exotic beauty of this former Dutch colony.

The painters who were active between the 1920’-1950’s, very often used what was denigratingly called ‘the holy trinity’? in their depiction of the Indonesian landscape: the palm tree, the volcano and the rice field. The latter is not captured in this painting.

These pastoral idylls contrasted with the fast-moving transformation of the landscape in the first half of the 20th century, through the swiftly-changing infrastructure plotted in by the Dutch colonists, the upheaval and unrest during the war and the fight for independence. The sketches, watercolors and paintings had however found a steadily growing group of buyers in the Dutch and European elite, and - during the war - in the Japanese occupiers. As an example of the elite clientele, the Nederlandsch-Indische Handelsbank commissioned?Ernest Dezentjé? with a painting of its main agency in Jakarta in the same year as the above painting was created, 1948.

After the Indonesian independence in 1949, Ernest Dezentjé not only became friends with President Sukarno but also his art advisor. President Sukarno regularly bought work from him, also to donate during state visits.

Although this ‘Mooi Indi?’ movement shows us a different way of perception and is now often seen as a ‘cultural colonization’ of Indonesia, it still represents an important artistic period in the history of the archipelago, and thanks to Dezentjé we are still allowed to quietly admire this serene picture of the eternally mysterious Merapi, guarding the landscape, top in the clouds, a magnificent sight in both reality and art.

?

? Marieke Burgers

CREDITS:

Painting of Merapi (detail),1948, oil on canvas, 40 x 50 cm. Private collection. Photo: Bart Rottier

Photograph of Ernest Dezentjé at work, January 1938, unknown photographer.

?

?

?