Sierkunst in Indonesië

Properties2
tagsdocument, source-book, dutch, colonial, decorative-art, indonesia, insulinde-series
aliasesWagner's Sierkunst in Indonesië, Wagner 1949, Insulinde Vol. VI, Sierkunst in Indonesië (Wagner), F. A. Wagner Sierkunst, Decorative Art in Indonesia (Wagner), Wagner's Indonesian Decorative Art

6 min read

Sierkunst in Indonesië — “Decorative Art in Indonesia” — is the source book by F. A. Wagner from which the present cluster of AcehWiki entries on Atjeh decorative art is drawn. It was published in 1949 by J. B. Wolters’ Uitgevers-Maatschappij N.V. in Groningen and Batavia, as Volume VI of the Insulinde series — “Serie Handleidingen voor de Kennis van Indonesië” (Series of Manuals for the Knowledge of Indonesia). The book is a survey, in Dutch, of the decorative art (sierkunst) of the peoples of the Indonesian archipelago, organised by technique (bark-cloth, leaf-work, plaiting, weaving and ikat, batik, bamboo-work, wood-carving, horn-bone-ivory, leather-parchment, pottery, metalwork) and illustrated with photographs and line-drawings of objects from across the archipelago. The Atjeh material in the book is sparse — Wagner’s concern is with the whole archipelago, not with Atjeh alone — but it is unusually rich, because Wagner consistently identifies the regional variants of each technique and thus places Atjeh, technique by technique, within the broader Indonesian decorative-art tradition.

Author and provenance

F. A. Wagner, the author, writes in the Voorbericht (Preface) that the book was compiled from lectures he had given in leergangen (training courses) held in various places for teachers of the M.O. (Moreder Onderwijs, secondary education) and L.O. (Lager Onderwijs, primary education). The lectures were organised by the sectie Onderwijszaken (Education Section) of the bureau Algemene Voorlichting (Bureau of General Information) of the Indisch Instituut (Netherlands Indies Institute) in Amsterdam. The book was thus a teacher-training manual, addressed to Dutch and Dutch-Indies educators, and intended to give them a more thorough account of Indonesian decorative art than was available in the existing land- en volkenkunde (geography and ethnography) textbooks. Wagner acknowledges his debts, in the Voorbericht, to J. A. Loeber Jr. and to Jasper and Pirngadie — the principal Dutch scholars of Indonesian decorative art — and to J. de Jong, Mrs. J. Pape, and J. W. Willemse of the Indisch Instituut.

The book’s date — 1949 — places it at the end of the Dutch colonial period in Indonesia: the Indonesian War of Independence was under way, and the formal transfer of sovereignty to the Republic of Indonesia would follow in December 1949. The book is, in this sense, a late-colonial survey, written in the last years of Dutch rule, by a Dutch author drawing on Dutch museum collections and Dutch scholarly literature. The Atjeh material in the book is, accordingly, a Dutch account of Atjeh decorative art, written at the end of the colonial period and based on the collections and the literature available to a Dutch author at that moment.

Structure and contents

The book is organised by technique, with each chapter treating one decorative-art technique and surveying its regional variants. The chapters, in order, are:

  1. Inleiding (Introduction) — pp. 5–6
  2. Iets over ornamentiek (Something on ornament) — pp. 7–16
  3. Schorsbewerking (Bark-cloth working) — pp. 17–21
  4. Bladwerk (Leaf-work) — pp. 22–25
  5. Vlechtwerk (Plaiting) — pp. 26–39
  6. Weven en ikatten (Weaving and ikat) — pp. 40–66
  7. Batikken, tritik, plangi en kain kembangan — pp. 67–80
  8. Bamboe-sierwerk (Bamboo decorative work) — pp. 81–92
  9. Houtsnijwerk (Wood-carving) — pp. 93–109
  10. Hoorn-, been- en ivoorbewerking (Horn, bone and ivory working) — pp. 110–114
  11. Leder- en perkamentbewerking (Leather and parchment working) — pp. 115–118
  12. Versiering door middel van vruchten, schelpen en kralen (Decoration with fruits, shells and beads) — pp. 119–125
  13. Aardewerk (Pottery) — p. 126–127
  14. Metaalwerk (Metalwork) — pp. 128–142

The Atjeh material is distributed across the chapters on ornament, plaiting, weaving and ikat, wood-carving, horn-working, and metalwork. There is no separate chapter on Atjeh; the Atjeh material appears, instead, as regional variants within the technique-by-technique survey.

The Atjeh material in the book

The Atjeh material in Wagner’s book, drawn on by the present cluster of AcehWiki entries, includes:

  • The anker-motief — the anchor motif of Atjeh weaving, a variation of the key-figure motif (pp. 10–11, 13, 56).
  • The plang — the Atjeh name for the arrow-point motif in ikat (pp. 9, 44, 54–55).
  • The Atjeh *trawang* plaiting — the open-work plaiting of Atjeh, illustrated in fig. 24 (pp. 29–30, 32, 33).
  • The idja — the Atjeh silk cloth with gold- and silver-thread decoration (pp. 55–56).
  • The Atjeh silk culture — the silk cultivation of Atjeh, described as “waarschijnlijk al zeer oud” (p. 41).
  • The Atjeh silk yarn import from Singapore and Penang — the modern trade in silk yarn for Atjeh weaving (p. 57).
  • The Atjeh women’s wide trousers — the typically Atjehnese garment, “een typisch Atjehs kledingstuk” (p. 56).
  • The koepiah der Atjehers — the “stijlvolle” Atjeh plaited skullcap (p. 36).
  • The Atjeh rotan shields — the rotan shields of Atjeh and the Bataklanden (p. 37).
  • The Atjeh powder horns — the powder horns of Atjeh, carved from the original horn-form (p. 110).
  • The reuntjong (rencong) — the Atjeh dagger, “in Atjeh werd vroeger nog de rentjong vervaardigd,” with a wooden sheath decorated with stylised leaf-motifs in fine engraving (p. 94).
  • The Atjeh brass lamps — the “mooi gemodelleerde lampen” of Atjeh brass-casting (p. 132).
  • The heetsen — the heat-reddening of gold, “vooral op Atjeh voorkomt” (pp. 136–137).
  • The Atjeh silver-wire ornament — the bent silver-wire and silver-ball ornament of Atjeh and the Bataklanden (p. 141).
  • The tjawardi — the enamelling technique, “vrijwel alleen in Atjeh” practised and probably imported from China (p. 142).

The list is not exhaustive — Wagner also mentions Atjeh, in passing, in the introductory chapter, where he notes that the archipelago stretches “van Sabang tot Merauke” (from Sabang to Merauke), placing Atjeh’s Sabang at the western extremity of the archipelago. But the list above is the core of the Atjeh material in the book, and it is the basis of the present cluster of AcehWiki entries.

Significance

Sierkunst in Indonesië is, for the present cluster of AcehWiki entries, the founding source — the book from which the entries on Atjeh decorative art are drawn. Its significance in the larger history of Atjehnese studies is that it offers, in a single late-colonial survey, a synthetic account of Atjeh decorative art that places Atjeh, technique by technique, within the broader Indonesian tradition. Wagner’s account is, in this sense, the principal Dutch scholarly source for the study of Atjeh decorative art at the end of the colonial period, and the entries drawn from it are, in turn, the AcehWiki’s first account of the Atjeh craftsman’s work in plaiting, weaving, horn-carving, and metalwork.

See Also

Source

Sierkunst in Indonesië, by F. A. Wagner, Insulinde — Serie Handleidingen voor de Kennis van Indonesië, Vol. VI (Groningen, Batavia: J. B. Wolters’ Uitgevers-Maatschappij N.V., 1949), 142 pp. + illustrations.

Graph View

Backlinks