Affandi

Private Asian Collection

Raka Sumichan and Umar Kayam, Affandi, Yayasan Bina Lestari Budaya, Jakarta, p. 165, colour illustration.
Sardjana Sumichan, Affandi Volume III, Bina Lestari Budaya Foundation,Jakarta and Singapore Art Museum, Singapore, p. 86, colour illustration.  

This work is in good overall condition as viewed. Examination under ultraviolet light reveals no sign of restoration as viewed. Framed.
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As the winter sun hovered over the horizons of Rome, Affandi (1907-1990) beheld one of the mightiest sights known to man — the Colosseum. The enormous amphitheater is an architectural marvel epitomizing a magnitude of human accomplishment few can rival. Swept by a surge of emotions, the Indonesian artist took his paint tubes and turned to this very canvas, rendering a powerful image of a stunning edifice. Unaccustomed to the chilly conditions, Affandi reportedly stood by a nearby pizza parlor in a desperate attempt to keep warm—rushing to complete the painting, spreading fresh paint with his bare hands and fingers. The end product rises to form Colosseum, Roma, a visually riveting translation of Affandi’s overwhelming encounter with this ancient, yet monstrous ruin.

A master of expression, with a penchant for drama, Affandi is undeniably one of the most important artists in the canon of Southeast Asian art history. Founder of the influential Lembaga Pelukis Rakyat (The People’s Painters’ Association), Affandi encouraged Indonesian artists to strive to represent candid, everyday human life. Colosseum, Roma, marks a breakthrough in the artist’ opus, embodying all the hallmarks of an iconic masterpiece while reveling in the freshness of the artist’s personal discoveries abroad. The present lot is one of only three known works of the subject and sets Affandi apart as a foremost modernist Indonesian artist of his generation. 

A seminal achievement in the artist’s “traveling series”, Colosseum, Roma signifies a pivotal part of the artist’s career—a stage of unrestrained self-discovery that would hone Affandi’s idiosyncratic approach. Such rare depictions of foreign countries and their dauntingly huge structures are captivating chapters of the artist’s enterprise overseas. They are accounts not only of what Affandi saw, but acts of visceral encounters; not only impressions of his surroundings, but gripping testaments of a world vision widened by this odyssey. While other Western artists might have trained in classical architectural history, Affandi was a stranger in a faraway land. Despite this unfamiliarity, the self-taught genius was prepared to take on any subject that would thrill his senses, including the daunting endeavor of painting the Roman Colosseum.

At the time very few Indonesian artists were awarded the privilege of venturing overseas. In 1949, the Indian government sent Affandi to study at the renowned Santiniketan Academy — a launch-pad for many of the India’s leading artisans. Notably, Affandi’s scholarship was made possible with diplomatic sponsorship, spurring his role as an unofficial cultural ambassador for Indonesia. A nationalist by nature, the artist further extended this role in the West by moving to Europe in 1951 when the continent saw the proliferation of avant-garde movements at its height. However Affandi remained very much rooted in his native sensibilities, advancing an attitude emerging from a post-colonial Asia pushing against imported European standards. The maestro travelled through France, Belgium, Italy, Holland and Great Britain in the early 1950s, feeding his ravenous desire for the rush of human experience that inspired great painting. 

Affandi’s travels rounded up in the classical center of ancient European culture—Rome—the home of the Flavian amphitheater more commonly known as the Colosseum. It is clear that Affandi’s relationship with Italy was a particularly amicable one since he met with great success amongst the country’s critics, diplomats and connoisseurs. After his first visit in 1953, the Italian government invited the painter to stay for a year. During this period, the enthusiasm for Affandi’s work was virtually infectious, launching the artist onto international platforms that would showcase the new aesthetic movement emerging from newly independent Indonesia. Under the invitation of art historian Rodolfo Pallucchini (1908-1989), Affandi became the first Indonesian artist to exhibit at the Venice Biennale in 1954 – an arena for the leading artistic minds around the world.

It was his affinity for Italy’s beauty and the connoisseurs who championed Affandi’s patently courageous style that led him to return to Italy in 1971 and in 1972. He set course to Rome to see once more in his lifetime its magnificent cultural sites. Commissioned around A.D. 70-72, the immense Colosseum now stands as a sacred symbol of eternity for Rome although damaged after falling victim to pillaging and earthquakes. Importantly, Affandi does not attempt to recreate a historical arena but illustrates the monument as a ruin of present times. His painting depicts a destination drawing tour buses and hordes of tourists, very much alive in its all-consuming magnetism. It is known that Affandi painted the Roman Colosseum twice during the day and once at night. The present lot, perhaps capturing the later end of the day, is truly a paragon in the artist’s illustrious career.

Visually, Affandi’s Colosseum, Roma represents a stark contrast to the many capriicii or architectural paintings that were highly widespread in European culture. In fact the artist was less concerned about details or accuracy and more fixated with rendering his personal confrontation with the structure and its looming, brooding presence. Rising gloriously above the street activities, Colosseum, Roma is an immense spectacle unfurling before the viewer’s eyes. The crowds visiting the arena are dwarfed into tiny figures as the sun engulfs the scene in a warm yellow. Here, the Colosseum stands not just a skeleton of the past but a proud marvel of humanity’s downfalls and triumphs.

This beautiful painting highlights Affandi’s ability to portray the very soul of his subject, no matter how colossal or foreign, in his own naturalist style. In many ways he conveys a reality more honest than the detailed architectural drawings meant to mimic reality – it is a reflection of the Colosseum’s essence and the visceral physicality that it impresses upon its visitors. Affandi’s keen intuition and sharpened eye for the liveliness of the world before him, is manifest in his instinctive use of saturated colours and the confident strokes smeared across this massive surface. Here he demonstrates a grasp of scale, merging the rules of perspective and the spontaneity of expression with prowess. Ultimately Affandi creates a sprawling composition with swelling three-dimensionality.

Bathed in a lustrous yellow hue, the scene exudes a royal quality and personifies the golden crown of Roman civilization. The sun, a fountain of energy and life, furrows in the darkening sky of spiraling clouds. This scene emulates the wintery gusts that were freezing Affandi to the bone while providing a tumultuous glimpse of the overcast cosmos. Often appearing as a dominating sphere of bright orange, the sun in Colosseum, Roma emanates yellow beams that recede into a grey web of indefinite energy. The artist hints at the astronomical, it is as if the Greek gods who dominated ancient mythology were still looking down from the heavens upon the Affandi’s amphitheater.

While the sun’s radiance sets upon the city, it emblazons the surface of the colossal structure presented to us. Light rays illuminate the entire arena and dramatically demarcate the Colosseum in warm oranges and shadows of cool, ebbing hues. Although the building is made of white stone, Affandi employs a lively palette of vivid greens, yellows and reds, transforming the mass of rock into a spectacle of nature’s forces. With a blackened emerald green, Affandi deepens each architectural feature, arch by arch, crevice upon crevice, forming a pattern of rhythmic curvatures belted across the Colosseum’s facade. By squeezing the paint directly onto the canvas, Affandi could delineate his images in a highly instinctive fashion. His methods harness the artist’s physical and psychological sensations to imbue the works with a pulsating vitality.

Above all his professional pursuits, Affandi sought to find subjects that instilled in him a sense of passion, vigor and violence. His belief in the inherent dynamism of every being and object can be traced to a myriad of Indonesian traditions. The artist once said “When I paint, I always want to become one with the object I paint. I lose myself, and then there is a feeling as if I’m going to fight against something." ¹ This statement not only positions his practice as one that taps into a subconscious self, it also alludes to a mode of battle--Affandi approaches the canvas as an arena in which to act.

It is thus only fitting that at its bloodiest prime, the Colosseum was a site of gladiator battles and grotesque spectacles meant to entertain huge audiences. True to the artist’s aspirations to portray the candid realities and nature of his subject, Colosseum, Roma shows the potent aggression and empowerment of Affandi’s gestures in a very tactile and lucid way. Famed for his distinct lines that are bold yet fluid, Affandi also used a strikingly potent red to highlight the rim and edges of the building’s tiered construction. In the present painting we see an intense expression of emotion as the monument’s solemn vitality is rebirthed in its rawest and truest of forms.

Within Affandi’s prolific career, the travelling series marks some of the most personal and heartfelt moments of the master’s life as he ventured from the comforts of Indonesia to establish himself as a novel voice in his field.  Sotheby’s is honored to offer one of the artist’s rarest and recognizably outstanding paintings from this album of adventures. Of the three known depictions of the Roman arena, the 1972 version is arguably the most radically experimental and colourful. The sheer power of Colosseum, Roma lies in Affandi’s immaculate perception of the ultimate reality of his subject, inevitably permeated by how he felt in the very flash of inspiration. In this, Affandi succeeds in bringing to life Charles Dickens’ description of the sacred monument: “full and running over with the lustiest of life.” Just as the Colosseum continues to awe generations, Affandi’s audience remain enthralled by his sophisticated yet humanistic visual vocabulary. Colosseum, Roma proves how the artist’s vision could cross land and sea, to capture the sublime and the divine in Affandi’s powerful encounters. 

¹Affandi cited in Sardjana Sumichan, ed., Affandi, Volume I, Bina Lestari Budaya Foundation, Singapore Art Museum, Jakarta, Singapore, 2007,  p. 40