T. J. Bezemer

Properties2
tagsperson, scholar, dutch, colonial, ethnography, decorative-art
aliasesProf. T. J. Bezemer, Professor T. J. Bezemer, Theodore J. Bezemer, Bezemer, Prof. J.J. Ezzmer (OCR garble), Prof. JJ..EZZMER (OCR garble)

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T. J. Bezemer was a Dutch professor — identified on the title-page of his 1933 plate-atlas *Indonesische Kunstnijverheid* as Prof. T. J. Bezemer — who wrote the Inleiding (introduction) to that atlas and is the author-of-record for the volume as a whole. He is the principal Dutch scholarly source for the photographic documentation of Atjehnese decorative art in the late colonial period, and his 1933 atlas is the founding source for the AcehWiki cluster of entries on Atjeh craft objects in Dutch museum collections. His name is reproduced on the title-page of the volume held at the Universiteitsbibliotheek of the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam as “PROF JJ..EZZMER” — an OCR-garbled form of Prof. T. J. Bezemer.

Authorship of the 1933 plate-atlas

Bezemer’s name appears on the title-page of *Indonesische Kunstnijverheid* (The Hague: ten Hagen, 15 October 1933) as the author of the Inleiding — the sixteen-page introduction (pp. 3–16) that surveys, technique by technique, the principal crafts (kunstnijverheid) of the Nederlandsch-Indië archipelago. The atlas itself was published by the N.V. tot Exploitatie van het Maandblad “Nederl-Indië, Oud en Nieuw” — the publishing vehicle of the monthly journal Nederl-Indië, Oud en Nieuw — met medewerking der (with the co-operation of) the Koninklijke Vereeniging “Koloniaal Instituut” of Amsterdam. The institutional setting of Bezemer’s authorship — a Dutch professor, writing for a Dutch colonial-educational publisher, with the co-operation of the Royal Colonial Institute — is the standard late-colonial form of Dutch popular-scholarly ethnography of the Indies.

The Inleiding and its Atjeh content

The Inleiding that Bezemer contributed to the 1933 atlas is the principal printed text in which his name is associated with the documentation of Atjeh craft. The Inleiding is divided into nine lettered sections — A. Vlechtwerk (plaiting), B. Weven (weaving), C. Batikken (batik), D. Bamboesnijwerk (bamboo-carving), E. Houtsnijwerk (wood-carving), F. Koperwerk (brasswork), G. Ijzersmeedkunst (ironwork), H. Goud- en Zilverwerk (gold- and silverwork), I. Vervaardiging van Wajangpoppen (the making of wayang puppets) — and the Atjeh material is concentrated in § H, where Bezemer documents the Atjeh *soeasa* wrapping technique from his own observation: “Bij de Atjehers v.v. wordt een stuk soeasa zoo plat gemaakt dat het geschikt is om een koperen staaf te omwikkelen” — “Among the Atjehers, for example, a piece of soeasa is flattened so thin that it is suitable for wrapping a copper rod.” This passage, together with its description of the subsequent borax-and-water dip, the coal-fire heating, the water-quench, and the anvil-hammering, is the principal Dutch scholarly account of an Atjeh-specific metalwork technique.

The remaining Atjeh material in the atlas — plate 62 (the Atjeh loom), plate 65 (the Atjeh imported-silk warp-ikat), plate 66 (the Atjeh silk ikat with warp strokes), plate 172 (the Atjeh sirih bowl and food tray), and plate 174 (the standing brass lamps of Northern and Central Sumatra) — is presented in the plate-section of the atlas rather than in the Inleiding, but Bezemer is the author-of-record for the volume as a whole and is therefore the editorial voice that selected these Atjeh objects for inclusion.

Sources cited by Bezemer

Bezemer’s Inleiding draws, for its technical descriptions, on the standard Dutch colonial scholarship of Indonesian craft. The clearest citation is to the multi-volume handbook by J. E. Jasper en Mas Pirngadie, De Inlandsche Kunstnijverheid in Nederlandsch-Indië, Volume IV (on gold- and silverwork), pp. 25–26 (on the cire perdue casting process) and p. 65 (on granulation). The Jasper-Pirngadie passage describes the à cire perdue casting process as practised by a Toba-Batak goldsmith on Noord-Sumatra, using *rimbaga* (a wax-resin-fat compound) for the wax model; Bezemer cites this passage as the framing technical description within which he then places the Atjeh goldsmiths’ alternative soeasa wrapping technique.

Bezemer also cites, in § C (on batik), the periodical Nederl-Indië, Oud en Nieuw for B. M. Goslings’s article on batik at Djambi (Sumatra) in the 15th volume; in § C also, an article on wax-batik among the Toradja’s of Midden-Celebes by J. W. van Nouhuys in Jrg. 10 (1925–26) of the same periodical; and in § F (on brasswork), an article by Mr. J. G. Huyser in the 1st volume of the same periodical, p. 229, on the decline of Javanese brasswork. He cites, in § E (on wood-carving), Prof. Dr. G. A. J. Hazeu and Prof. Dr. N. J. Krom on the origin of the wajang; in § I (on wayang puppets), the Arjuna Wiwāha (an Old-Javanese poem of the first half of the 11th century); and in § G (on ironwork), the meteoric iron of Prambanan in the Vorstenlanden of Java. These citations show Bezemer as a synthesiser of the existing Dutch colonial scholarship rather than as a primary fieldworker; his original contribution to the Atjeh material is the documentation of the soeasa wrapping technique and the selection of the Atjeh plates.

Late-colonial situation

Bezemer’s 1933 atlas was published in the late-colonial period of Dutch rule in the Netherlands Indies — three years after the 1930 census, eight years before the Japanese invasion of 1941–1942. The atlas is therefore a document of the last years of Dutch colonial craft-scholarship: written from Dutch museum collections, by a Dutch professor, for a Dutch colonial-educated public. The Atjeh material in the atlas is, in this sense, a Dutch account of Atjeh decorative art at the end of the colonial period, based on the objects that had been collected by Dutch museums (principally the Koloniaal Instituut’s ethnographic division in Amsterdam, the Rijks Ethnographisch Museum at Leiden, and the Museum voor Land- en Volkenkunde at Rotterdam) in the half-century before the atlas’s publication.

Significance

For Atjeh’s history, Bezemer’s significance is that his 1933 atlas is the principal Dutch photographic record of Atjeh craft objects in the late colonial period. The atlas’s Inleiding § H is the principal Dutch scholarly account of an Atjeh-specific metalwork technique (the soeasa wrapping); its plates 62, 65, 66, 172, and 174 are the principal Dutch photographic record of Atjeh looms, Atjeh silk ikats, an Atjeh sirih-bowl, and Atjeh-region brass lamps in Dutch museum collections at the moment when those collections were at their fullest. The atlas is, in this sense, a fixed point in the documentary record of Atjeh decorative art — the 1933 against which later (and earlier) collections can be compared. Its companion volume, F. A. Wagner’s *Sierkunst in Indonesië* of 1949, would update the Bezemer account sixteen years later, in the very last years of Dutch rule.

See Also

Source

Indonesische Kunstnijverheid. Platen-Atlas met Inleiding van Prof. T. J. Bezemer (‘s-Gravenhage: N.V. tot Exploitatie van het Maandblad “Nederl-Indië, Oud en Nieuw”; ten Hagen’s Drukkerij en Uitgeversmaatschappij N.V., 15 October 1933). Universiteitsbibliotheek Vrije Universiteit, Amsterdam, LS 5411 (shelfmark 05411). Title-page and Inleiding, pp. 3–16.

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