Raden is a Japanese termRaden.

EYD: ; ,

DIN DIN or Din or din may refer to: People and language * Din (name), people with the name * Dīn, an Arabic word with three general senses: judgment, custom, and religion from which the name originates * Dinka language (ISO 639 code: din), spoken ...

: ; 1811 – 23 April 1880) was a pioneering Romantic painter from the

Dutch East Indies The Dutch East Indies, also known as the Netherlands East Indies (; ), was a Dutch Empire, Dutch colony with territory mostly comprising the modern state of Indonesia, which Proclamation of Indonesian Independence, declared independence on 17 Au ...

Arab Arabs (, , ; , , ) are an ethnic group mainly inhabiting the Arab world in West Asia and North Africa. A significant Arab diaspora is present in various parts of the world. Arabs have been in the Fertile Crescent for thousands of years ...

- Javanese ethnicity. He was considered to be the first "modern" artist from

Indonesia Indonesia, officially the Republic of Indonesia, is a country in Southeast Asia and Oceania, between the Indian Ocean, Indian and Pacific Ocean, Pacific oceans. Comprising over List of islands of Indonesia, 17,000 islands, including Sumatra, ...

(then the

), and his paintings corresponded with nineteenth-century romanticism which was popular in Europe at the time. He also expressed his cultural roots and inventiveness in his work.

Early life

Raden Saleh Syarif Bustaman was born in 1811 in the village of Terboyo, near

Semarang Semarang (Javanese script, Javanese: , ''Kutha Semarang'') is the capital and largest city of Central Java province in Indonesia. It was a major port during the Netherlands, Dutch Dutch East Indies, colonial era, and is still an important regio ...

on the island of

Java Java is one of the Greater Sunda Islands in Indonesia. It is bordered by the Indian Ocean to the south and the Java Sea (a part of Pacific Ocean) to the north. With a population of 156.9 million people (including Madura) in mid 2024, proje ...

in the

(present-day

). He was born into a noble Hadhrami family; his father was

Sayyid ''Sayyid'' is an honorific title of Hasanid and Husaynid lineage, recognized as descendants of the Islamic prophet Muhammad through his daughter Fatima and Ali's sons Hasan ibn Ali, Hasan and Husayn ibn Ali, Husayn. The title may also refer ...

Husen bin Alwi bin Awal bin Yahya, whose family had come to Java via Surat in India in the seventeenth century. He was the grandson of

Abdullah Bustam through his mother, Raden Ayu Sarif Husen bin Alwi bin Awal. Through his sister, Roqayah, Raden Saleh was uncle by marriage to the famous religious leader Habib Ali Kwitang.

Studied in Europe

Young Raden Saleh was first taught in

Bogor Bogor City (), or Bogor (, ), is a landlocked city in the West Java, Indonesia. Located around south of the national capital of Jakarta, Bogor is the 6th largest city in the Jakarta metropolitan area and the 14th overall nationwide.

by the Belgian artist A.J. Payen. Payen acknowledged the youth's talent, and persuaded the colonial government of the Netherlands to send Raden Saleh to the Netherlands to study art. He arrived in Europe in 1829 and began to study under

Cornelis Kruseman Cornelis Kruseman (; 25 September 1797 – 14 November 1857) was a Dutch painter, draughtsman, etcher, lithographer, silhouettist, paper-cut artist, and art collector.Andreas Schelfhout. It was from Kruseman that Raden Saleh studied his skills in portraiture, and later was accepted at various European courts where he was assigned to do portraits. While in Europe, in 1836 Saleh became the first indigenous Indonesian to be initiated into

Freemasonry Freemasonry (sometimes spelled Free-Masonry) consists of fraternal groups that trace their origins to the medieval guilds of stonemasons. Freemasonry is the oldest secular fraternity in the world and among the oldest still-existing organizati ...

. From 1839, he spent five years at the court of

Ernest I, Duke of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha Ernest I (; 2 January 178429 January 1844) served as the last sovereign duke of Saxe-Coburg-Saalfeld (as Ernest III) from 1806 to 1826 and the first sovereign duke of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha from 1826 to 1844. He was the father of Prince Albert, ...

, who became an important patron. From Schelfhout, Raden Saleh furthered his skills as a landscape painter. Raden Saleh visited several European cities, as well as

Algiers Algiers is the capital city of Algeria as well as the capital of the Algiers Province; it extends over many Communes of Algeria, communes without having its own separate governing body. With 2,988,145 residents in 2008Census 14 April 2008: Offi ...

. In

The Hague The Hague ( ) is the capital city of the South Holland province of the Netherlands. With a population of over half a million, it is the third-largest city in the Netherlands. Situated on the west coast facing the North Sea, The Hague is the c ...

, a lion tamer allowed Raden Saleh to study his lion, and from that his most famous painting of animal fights was created, which subsequently brought fame to the artist. Many of his paintings were exhibited at the

Rijksmuseum The Rijksmuseum () is the national museum of the Netherlands dedicated to Dutch arts and history and is located in Amsterdam. The museum is located at the Museum Square in the borough of Amsterdam South, close to the Van Gogh Museum, the S ...

in Amsterdam. Several of his paintings were destroyed when the Colonial Dutch pavilion in Paris was burnt in 1931.

Return to the Dutch East Indies/Indonesia

COLLECTIE TROPENMUSEUM Het huis van de kunstschilder Raden Saleh door hemzelf gebouwd

COLLECTIE TROPENMUSEUM Portret van de kunstschilder Raden Saleh

Raden Saleh returned to Dutch East Indies in 1852,"Pioneer Between Worlds", ''National Geographic Indonesia'', 2012. after living in Europe for 20 years. He worked as conservator for the colonial collection of government art, and acted as court painter to the Governors-General. He also painted portraits of members of the colonial elite – European administrators, the Javanese ''

priyayi ''Priyayi'' (also spelled ''Priayi''; Van Ophuijsen Spelling System, former spelling: ''Prijaji'') was the Dutch East Indies, Dutch-era class of the nobles of the robe, as opposed to royal nobility or ''List of Surakarta and Yogyakarta nobility ...

'' or the ''

Peranakan The Peranakan Chinese () are an ethnic group defined by their genealogical descent from the first waves of Southern Chinese settlers to maritime Southeast Asia, known as Nanyang (region), Nanyang (), namely the British Empire, British, Portugu ...

'' Chinese '

Cabang Atas The Cabang Atas (''Van Ophuijsen Spelling System'': Tjabang Atas)—literally 'upper branch' in Indonesian language, Indonesian—was the traditional Chinese establishment or gentry of Dutch East Indies, colonial Indonesia. They were the families ...

' – as well as landscapes. Returning to Java, he expressed his uneasiness of living in the colonies, stating that "here, people only talks about coffee and sugar, then sugar and coffee" in one of his letters. Upon returning, he married a wealthy '' Indo'' heiress of part-German extraction, Constancia von Mansfeld. His new wife financed the construction of Saleh's '' landhuis'' or country house on the private domain ('' particuliere land'') that the couple had acquired, Cikini. Saleh's house was inspired architecturally by Callenberg Castle where he had stayed during his European travels 1844. Surrounded by vast grounds, most of them were converted into public gardens in 1862, and were closed in the turn of the century. In 1960, the Taman Ismail Marzuki was built in the former gardens. The house itself is still used today as a PGI Cikini Hospital and its name is immortalized in a street near the hospital. On his first wife's death, Saleh remarried to a young aristocratic woman of the

Yogyakarta Sultanate The Sultanate of Yogyakarta, officially the Sultanate of Ngayogyakarta Hadiningrat ( ; ), is a Javanese monarchy in Yogyakarta Special Region, in the Republic of Indonesia. The current head of the sultanate is Hamengkubuwono X. Yogyakart ...

, Raden Ayu Danudirdja, in 1867 and subsequently moved to

, where he rented a house near the

Bogor Botanical Gardens The Bogor Botanical Gardens () is a botanical garden located in Bogor, Indonesia, 60 km south of central Jakarta. It is currently operated by the National Research and Innovation Agency. The garden is located in the city center and adjoin the ...

with a view of

Mount Salak Mount Salak (, ) is an eroded volcano in West Java, Indonesia. It has several satellite cones on its southeast flank and the northern foot, along with two additional craters at the summit. Mount Salak has been evaluated for geothermal power d ...

. He later took his wife to travel in Europe, visiting countries such as the Netherlands, France, Germany, and Italy. His wife however contracted an illness while in Paris, the exact illness is still not known, and was so severe that they both immediately returned to Bogor. She died on 31 July 1880, following her husband's death three months earlier.

Death

On 23 April 1880, Saleh suddenly fell sick. He claimed that he was poisoned by one of his servants, and subsequently died, as such it was reported in the Java-Bode newspaper, 24 April, 1880 ; however post-mortem examination showed that his circulatory system was disrupted due to a clot near his heart. Saleh was buried two days later in Kampung Empang, Bogor. As reported in the Java-Bode, 28 April 1880, his funeral was "attended by various '' landheeren'' andlordsand Dutch officials, and even by curious students from nearby school."

Artworks

While living in Paris, Saleh met

Horace Vernet Émile Jean-Horace Vernet (; 30 June 178917 January 1863) more commonly known as simply Horace Vernet, was a French painter of battles, portraits, and Orientalist subjects. Biography Early career Vernet was born to Carle Vernet, another famo ...

whose painting frequently took themes of African wildlife. Compared to Vernet, Saleh's painting seems to be more influenced by the romantic painter

Eugène Delacroix Ferdinand Victor Eugène Delacroix ( ; ; 26 April 1798 – 13 August 1863) was a French people, French Romanticism, Romantic artist who was regarded as the leader of the French Romantic school.Noon, Patrick, et al., ''Crossing the Channel: ...

. This could be seen in one of Saleh's work, ''Hunting Lion'', 1840, which has similar composition to Delacroix's '' Liberty Leading the People''. However, Werner Kraus, a researcher in the Southeast-Asian Art Center of

Passau Passau (; ) is a city in Lower Bavaria, Germany. It is also known as the ("City of Three Rivers"), as the river Danube is joined by the Inn (river), Inn from the south and the Ilz from the north. Passau's population is about 50,000, of whom ...

, Germany, said that Saleh "never mentioned Delacroix. Perhaps he saw Delacroix's, and possibly Vernet's, works during an exhibition." Many European nobles were amazed by Raden Saleh's paintings, as were the Dutch, they did not expect a young painter from the

(now Indonesia) to be able to master the techniques and capture the character of western painting, including Sachsen-Coburg-Gotha, the family of

Queen Victoria Victoria (Alexandrina Victoria; 24 May 1819 – 22 January 1901) was Queen of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland from 20 June 1837 until Death and state funeral of Queen Victoria, her death in January 1901. Her reign of 63 year ...

, and a number of governors-general such as Johannes van den Bosch, Jean Chrétien Baud, and Herman Willem Daendels. In 1883, an exhibition of Raden Saleh's paintings was held in Amsterdam to commemorate the third anniversary of Saleh's death, on the initiative of King Willem III and Ernst of Sachsen-Coburg-Gotha. Among them were the paintings Burning Forest, Buffalo Hunting in Java, and the Capture of Prince Diponegoro.

''The Arrest of Pangeran Diponegoro''

Raden Saleh is particularly remembered for his historical painting, ''The Arrest of Pangeran Diponegoro'', which depicted the betrayal of the rebel leader Prince Diponegoro by the colonial government, thus ending the

Java War The Java War (; ; ), also known in Indonesia as the Diponegoro War (; ), was an armed conflict in central and eastern Java from 1825 to 1830, between native Javanese rebels headed by Prince Diponegoro and the Dutch East Indies supported by J ...

in 1830. The Prince was tricked into entering Dutch custody near

Magelang Magelang () is one of six cities in Central Java, the Central Java Province of Indonesia that are administratively independent of the regencies in which they lie geographically. Each of these cities is governed by a mayor rather than a Subdivi ...

, believing he was there for negotiations of a possible cease-fire. He was captured through treachery and later deported. The event had been previously painted by a Dutch painter Nicolaas Pieneman, commissioned by Lieutenant General Hendrik Merkus de Kock. It is thought that Saleh saw this painting during his stay in Europe. Saleh made significant changes in his version of the painting; Pieneman painted the scene from the right, Saleh from the left. Pieneman depicts Diponegoro with resigned expression, while in Saleh's he appears to be outraged. Pieneman gave his painting the title ''Submission of Prince Diponegoro'', while Saleh gave ''The Arrest of Pangeran Diponegoro''. It is known that Saleh deliberately painted Diponegoro's Dutch captors with large heads to make them appear monstrous, as opposed to the more proportionally depicted Javanese. Raden Saleh’s work has been regarded as a sign of incipient nationalism in what was then the Dutch East Indies / Indonesia. This can also be seen it the depiction of Diponegoro's men. Pieneman had never been to the Indies, and so depicted Diponegoro's men in a more Arabic fashion. Saleh's version has a more accurate depiction of native Javanese clothing, with some figures wearing

batik Batik is a dyeing technique using wax Resist dyeing, resist. The term is also used to describe patterned textiles created with that technique. Batik is made by drawing or stamping wax on a cloth to prevent colour absorption during the dyein ...

and blangkon. Saleh finished this painting in 1857 and presented it to Willem III of Netherlands in

. It was returned to Indonesia in 1978 as a realization of a cultural agreement between the two countries in 1969, regarding the return of cultural items which were taken, lent, or exchanged to the Dutch in the previous eras. Even though the painting did not fall under any of those categories, because Saleh presented it to the King of the Netherlands and it was never in the possession of Indonesia, it was nevertheless returned as a gift from the Royal Palace of Amsterdam, and is currently displayed at the

Merdeka Palace The Merdeka Palace (; also known in Indonesian as and during the Dutch colonial times as ), is one of seven presidential palaces in Indonesia. It is located on the north side of the Merdeka Square, Jakarta, Merdeka Square in Central Jakarta, In ...

Museum in

Jakarta Jakarta (; , Betawi language, Betawi: ''Jakartè''), officially the Special Capital Region of Jakarta (; ''DKI Jakarta'') and formerly known as Batavia, Dutch East Indies, Batavia until 1949, is the capital and largest city of Indonesia and ...

Tomb

Decades later, somewhere in

, Mas Adung, a descendant of the Sundanese nobleman Raden Panoeripan, was about to clear the weeds to the west of his house. Unexpectedly, after the weeds were cleared, two large tombstones were revealed with Dutch letters written on them. The tombstones were made of marble. The two tombstones were none other than the tombs of Raden Saleh and his wife. This incident occurred in 1923. In 1953, President

Sukarno Sukarno (6 June 1901 – 21 June 1970) was an Indonesian statesman, orator, revolutionary, and nationalist who was the first president of Indonesia, serving from 1945 to 1967. Sukarno was the leader of the Indonesian struggle for independenc ...

visited Raden Saleh's tomb. Bung Karno once told Adun that "Raden Saleh was a great Indonesian painter who was widely known in Europe" and assigned the architect Friedrich Silaban to restore his tomb. Behind Raden Saleh's tomb actually lies the tomb of Raden Panoeripan and several of his descendants. It is said that Raden Panoeripan's tomb has been around since the 17th century. Raden Saleh's tomb is currently cared for and guarded by a caretaker who is a direct descendant of Raden Panoeripan.

Works

Raden Saleh Bustaman Winterlandschaft.jpg, ''Winter Scenery'' (1830) JeanChrétienBaud.jpg, ''Portrait of Jean Chrétien Baud'' (1835) Raden Sarief Bastaman Saleh - Johannes Graaf van den Bosch.jpg, ''Portrait of Johannes van den Bosch'' (1836) Raden Sarief Bustaman Saleh - Lion attacking a horse.jpg, ''Lion attacking a horse'' (1840) Raden Saleh - Self Portrait.jpg, Self-portrait (1841) Raden Saleh - hunt.jpg, ''Deer Hunt'' (1846) Raden Saleh - Javanese Landscape, with Tigers Listening to the Sound of a Travelling Group.jpg, ''Javanese Landscape, with Tigers Listening to the Sound of a Travelling Group'' (1849) Raden Saleh - Six Horsemen Chasing Deer, 1860.jpg, ''Six Horsemen Chasing Deer'' (1860) Raden Saleh - View of Dieng Plateau (1872).jpg, View of

Dieng Plateau The Dieng Plateau, often called simply Dieng (; ) is a plateau in Central Java, Indonesia that forms the floor of the caldera complex on the Dieng Volcanic Complex. Administratively, this plateau is included in the territory of Banjarnegara Regen ...

(1872) COLLECTIE TROPENMUSEUM Een overstroming op Java TMnr 3728-464.jpg, ''A Flood in Java'' (1865-1875), modelled after Géricault's '' The Raft of the Medusa'' Raden Saleh - Javanese Mail Station, 1876.jpg, ''Javanese Mail Station'' (1876) Raden Saleh - Study of walking tiger.jpg, Watercolor study of a walking tiger Raden Saleh - The Lion hunt (1841).jpg, The Lion Hunt (1841) Raden Saleh, circle of - A landscape in the Dutch East Indies.jpg, A landscape in the Dutch East Indie / Indonesia

In popular culture

* '' Stealing Raden Saleh '' ''(Indonesian: Mencuri Raden Saleh)'' is a 2022 action thriller film directed by Angga Dwimas Sasongko and written by Sasongko and Husein M. Atmodjo. The film features a group of people who want to plan the theft of Indonesian painter Raden Saleh's masterpiece "The Arrest of Prince Diponegoro"

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Saleh, Raden 1810s births 1880 deaths People from Semarang Javanese people Romantic painters Artists from the Dutch East Indies 19th-century Indonesian painters People of Yemeni descent Hashemite people Indonesian Freemasons Priyayi