Lot 41: HENDRIK PAULIDES

HENDRIK PAULIDES
1892-1967
MYTHOLOGICAL SCENE
Signed with initial H.P. and dated 1949 lower right
Oil on canvas
100 by 135 cm.; 39 1/4 by 53 in.
exhibited
Helmond, Gemeentemuseum, 'Indonesische Impressie', 15 February -17 May 1992
Literature
Peter E. M. Hammann, 'Hendrik Paulides, Painter and Narrator', Photo Asia, The Netherlands, 1997, Page HP103, colourplate
S$60000-80000
US$36360-48480

Hendrik Paulides spent only a brief period in Java in the 1920s - visiting the island for the first time in 1922 with his wife and again in 1929. A student of well-known Dutch artists Carel Dake and Antoon Derkinderen at the Amsterdam Academy of Fine Arts, he was fascinated, like all visiting artists, with the extreme finesse and 'barbarity' that coexisted in Javanese culture. Paulides was an observer and many of his works record the elements of native life - farmers, cowherds, artisans, dancers and musicians. Many of these studies are rendered in a relatively academic manner. He was also interested in the shifts between reality and mythology in the daily life of the Javanese, and the importance of the classic stories in their psyche. Several works by the artist show this concern in the modern, stylised depiction of the figures.
The experience gained through his visits to Indonesia was later to help the artist as a muralist, for which he won great acclaim. He was commissioned to paint murals for the Netherlands East Indies Pavilion at the 1931 International Colonial Fair, the Indies wing of his country's pavilion at the 1937 World Fair in Paris, and again at a similar pavilion at the 1939 World Fair in New York.
In 1935, Paulides painted a full-length portrait of a warrior-hero from a classic Javanese dance drama, perhaps Arjuna from the Mahabharata. The central figure of the hero is flanked on one side by soldiers and on the other by demons. In 1949, twenty years after he last visited Java, the artist revisited this painting, and executed a new piece, which although has many similar elements, is actually more cryptic in atmosphere.
Mythological Scene depicts the head and shoulders of a similar contemplative warrior, who is surrounded by three soldiers on one side and a monster on the other. As though representing his spiritual torment, small figures seem to be trying to escape the monster's clutches, and to attack the hero. A simian creature and a kneeling figure seem to be perched on the quills of his arrows behind his shoulder. The surreal atmosphere and mythological tone relate the work to Walter Spies's later paintings. As with Spies, it is unlikely that the narrative in this painting is a literal illustration of an episode from one of the classic Indian epics. Like Spies and Miguel Covarrubias, Paulides sought to express the archaic, almost divine-like dignity he witnessed with a modernist's eye. Java and Bali were to these artists what Egypt and Rome were to the proponents of art deco.
Works on Java by Paulides are very rare, and they represent an important art historical period in the development of Javanese themed works - the transitional period between academicism and modernism.