My new Balinese keris

[A. G. Maisey]

I think sena is what we call sonokembang in Jawa.

[Interested Party]

All I can say is wow! To my understanding you made the dress, does that include the pendok as well? I hope my upcoming question barrage of my impressions isn't bad manners or overwhelming. I really like the burl of the, would we call it a wrangka or a sampir? Burl can be very difficult to carve and your detail is crisp. Is that a sunflower as the main motif in the lozenge carved into the burl? If so is there Indian influence on that detail? Does the rest of the lozenge show Dutch influence? Below the carved lozenge the pendok reminds me of chrysanthemums but I can't think of from where. I would love some pictures of the hilt. I can't see what is going on/who it is. Thanks again for showing us this creation. At some point an explanation if it isn't too personal would be interesting as once something is put out into the world as this has been it takes a life of its own separate from the original intent of its creator. The easiest way to explain this for me and at the same time perpetrate the act is to borrow what Auden said of Yeats works upon his death when Yeat's could no longer interpret his own writings:

The current of his feeling failed; he became his admirers.

Now he is scattered among a hundred cities
And wholly given over to unfamiliar affections,
To find his happiness in another kind of wood
And be punished under a foreign code of conscience.
The words of a dead man
Are modified in the guts of the living.


Finally a possible epiphany I had while writing this: If the keris simply represents a house for preferred spirits to dwell in not an exact representation, thus the wide variations in representations of traditional forms, of the spirits themselves, I wonder if that is not why there was a certain secretive nature to keris culture as too many eyes on an object could confuse the object's inter life?

[David]

Originally Posted by Interested Party

All I can say is wow! To my understanding you made the dress, does that include the pendok as well?

I am pretty sure that Anthony didn't make this dress. He did, however, commission it.
Thanks for the close-ups Anthony. The silver work is beautiful. I'm afraid i see Bali work and motifs here. I'm not sure about the Dutch influence I.P. mentions. I would think that in some ways anything that is an extension of the Mojopahit can be said to have an Indian influence somewhere in its roots, but again i see Bali work here, at least in style. Is the mranggi actually in Bali or elsewhere?

[Anthony G.]

Originally Posted by David

I am pretty sure that Anthony didn't make this dress. He did, however, commission it.
Thanks for the close-ups Anthony. The silver work is beautiful. I'm afraid i see Bali work and motifs here. I'm not sure about the Dutch influence I.P. mentions. I would think that in some ways anything that is an extension of the Mojopahit can be said to have an Indian influence somewhere in its roots, but again i see Bali work here, at least in style. Is the mranggi actually in Bali or elsewhere?

Hi all, I commissioned it and the craftsman is from Lombok. The design idea however came from myself. I am no good with anything using my hands, got kicked out of art class during high school.

[Interested Party]

Originally Posted by David

I am pretty sure that Anthony didn't make this dress. He did, however, commission it.
Thanks for the close-ups Anthony. The silver work is beautiful. I'm afraid i see Bali work and motifs here. I'm not sure about the Dutch influence I.P. mentions. I would think that in some ways anything that is an extension of the Mojopahit can be said to have an Indian influence somewhere in its roots, but again i see Bali work here, at least in style. Is the mranggi actually in Bali or elsewhere?

Anthony I apologize. I misread the previous posts and would very much like to believe that many of our members have this kind of talent coming straight off the couch.

I am not an expert on anything and differ to the more knowledgeable members (everyone else). I joined and comb the archives to expand my knowledge base and as a student my ideas ideas are often fallacies. Questions not statements. Esp. the Dutch. I am no expert on anything sadly. What I believe is a sunflower motif I have seen elsewhere on Indian work attached is an example. I have seen almost identical sunflowers on Mexican items old and new, but to me it seems that these would have little influence on Indonesia and Bali. As far as the Dutch goes I had two rationales for this assumption, both highly anecdotal. First I found nothing analagous in F. Wagner's The Art of Indonesia a work referenced by V. Ghiringhelli so I would assume it is of some use and authority though from the 1950s. Secondly I thought of older furniture. I have been shopping for writing desk and this work reminded my of some of the raised work from the US east coast in the early 1900s. Eastern US woodwork was very influenced by Dutch craftsmen down to the vocabulary to describe wood. An example being as a boy I was told "checked" wood was a term from the Pennsylvanian Dutch trying to say "shaked." As trees exposed in fields or the edges of forest to wind were more likely to crack when drying. They would also grow more quickly and had a less dense grain which couldn't help matters. Finally if anyone has pre-colonial motifs, 1700s or preferably 1600s, that are similar it would be a treat to see them and definitively put the matter to rest. My mind always finds echoes of other works in what I see and hear. It is somestimes a bit of a curse, like an earworm. I could not find the example that made me think of chrysanthemums but I did find Invincible Krises 2 had peonies engraved in silver which bear some resemblance as well. Then again maybe just another sunflower Like I said a bit of a curse.
I know cultural diffusion goes both ways so I guess the motifs could have moved east to west as well.

[A. G. Maisey]

I.P., flowers in Javanese & Balinese art motifs are commonly read as a part of the overall motif, and as is common with other things in Jawa & Bali the names of the motifs can change depending on a number of factors. The meaning of a motif can be understood in varying ways also.

In Jawa & Bali, perhaps the most common single flower motif is the lotus, but other flowers in other places and for other reasons can also be found. This Wiki link will give some idea of the problems faced in trying to identify & interpret a single flower within a motif, or within a decorative field.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_o...floral_emblems

One of, if not the best references for Indonesian art motifs is Van Der Hoop's "Indonesian Design", published in 1949 in three languages, parallel text;- Dutch, Bahasa Indonesia, English. The content is an overview, it is quite general and its value is that it opens the door on a motif, permitting further research along specific lines.

With Javanese art motifs one of the best places to start looking for identification is one of the many books that deal with batik motifs --- if you throw "batik motifs" into GOOGLE, you will get several million links.

The single most important art motif in Indonesian art and especially in Javanese art is the Gunungan, representations of this permeate Indonesian culture. This motif is often hidden, and can sometimes be represented as something else, or named as something else, for instance, the well known Tumpal motif is a Gunungan representation. Sumastuti Sumukti wrote a very good paper on the Gunungan as a Phd dissertation, Uni of Hawaii.

In fact, the keris itself is understood as a representation of the Gunungan.

EDIT

I was so busy waffling on about generalities that I forgot to answer the specific question relating to Anthony's flower motifs.

The rear motifs showing flowers are known as "patra/patera cina" patra means either a leaf or a carved decoration, "cina" is China/Chinese", so "Chinese style carved decoration'. This "Chinese style" has a sort drooping arrangement. There is another common Balinese floral motif with a round flower, this is called "Patra/patera Olanda", "Olanda" is "Dutch" (Hollander)

this info is from Urs Ramseyer, and it seems to me to given in Balinese Indonesian, it does not seem to be pure Balinese.