A Young Woman at the Crossroads of Gazes – Njana Tilem Gallery

Young woman holding a flower and a mirror by a sculptor from the Njana Tilem Gallery, between 1970 and 2000, 31 cm, private collection

Probably created between the 1970s and 1990s, the sculpture is carved from Macassar ebony, a dark wood streaked with reddish veins. It depicts a young woman kneeling, her legs folded to one side. With her head tilted, she gazes at a flower she holds between the fingertips of her right hand. In her other hand, she holds a mirror. She is simply dressed, in an outfit that covers her legs and torso up to her chest. A slight smile animates her face, framed by subengs. Two flowers similar to the one she contemplates adorn the top of her head. The fall of her long hair is slowed, at the nape of her neck, by a simple knot.

How should we understand this play of comparison between the flower and the reflection? For an eye accustomed to the lessons of vanitas painting, it is tempting to read into it a reflection on the powers of time, which will one day carry away the young woman's beauty just as it will wither the cut flower. An ancient moral cautions the Western viewer: it can be dangerous to attach oneself to appearances, or to become too enamored of oneself. The theme might equally recall Narcissus, the mythological figure who, leaning over the water's surface, became so lost in contemplation of his own reflection that he wasted away and gave place to the flower that bears his name. But this young woman sits far from Europe, from its Christian morality and ancient myths, and it is reasonable to suppose that her attitude suggests nothing of what has just been evoked. Perhaps her smile expresses a simple tranquility of soul, the feeling of fullness that comes from meditating on the life that blossoms in her young face as much as in the flower she holds between her fingers.

Beneath the base of the sculpture is engraved a monogram well known to collectors of Balinese sculpture: "NTG," with the crossbar of the T capping the N and the G. This is accompanied by the inscription "Njana Tilem Gallery – Mas – Bali." Born from the Njana & Son Studio founded in the early 1960s in Mas by Ida Bagus Tilem, son of Ida Bagus Njana, the Njana Tilem Gallery is still active today. It has a reputation for producing pieces of great craftsmanship. The models, often created by Tilem himself, are executed by a team of sculptors who were, originally, hired directly by the master to work under his supervision.

From what I have been able to observe, interest in the most accomplished productions of the Njana Tilem Gallery varies among Western collectors. While the sculptors' skill, the quality of the wood species, and the finish are not in question, the "Njana Tilem" style, immediately recognizable, seems to elicit more contrasting reactions. For what reasons? The answer must doubtless be sought in the references this style seems to invoke.

As it manifests in this sculpture and in others, the "Njana Tilem" style can be seen as a combination of heterogeneous traits. The subject of the seated woman is nothing new. It follows in the wake of numerous sculptures created in the Ubud district or the Klungkung area since the 1930s. The slight elongation of the nose, the directness of the curve bordering the brow ridges, and the subtle contrast between the regular slenderness of the arms and the fleshier legs appear as aspects inherited from the wayang style.

But at the same time, certain traits seem to refer to an entirely different world. The smooth surfaces, the reassuring softness of flowing curves—excluding the broken lines often employed in the wayang style—the substantial volume of the head contrasting with the slender torso, a particular suppleness of the fingers, all of this causes the silhouette to slide toward an aesthetic that is both popular and globalized. The developed bust, the slim waist over wide hips give her a family resemblance to the little dancers whose adventures certain American cartoons have depicted since the 1930s, such as Grim Natwick's Betty Boop, or Tex Avery's Red Hot Riding Hood. But this kinship may be fortuitous. It probably exists primarily in my Western gaze, and it is not certain that Tilem himself would have approved of this kind of comparison.

The fact remains that the tastes of the average Western visitor are shaped by his culture, and that he generally spends more time in front of his television than leafing through books on Asian arts. And Tilem doubtless wants the productions of the gallery he directs to appeal to this visitor as much as to the informed connoisseur. A desire for adaptation that could explain these stylistic choices that some collectors regard as the result of a compromise flirting with kitsch. Yet this is, in my opinion, to take the wrong path, and to mistake a virtue for a flaw. For it seems to me, precisely, that the strength of Tilem's approach resides in the fact that a figure like this can appear to be so many things at once: a Balinese beauty born from the modernity of the wayang style, a distant reflection of certain cartoon figures, but also—why not—an accidental cousin of Narcissus, an uncertain echo of Western vanitas. This figure of a seated woman was born in a context where gazes and sensibilities of all origins intersect, sometimes misunderstand each other, even contradict one another. The sculptor invents a style capable of accommodating this complexity. From where he stands, mistaking a figure for something other than what it is may no longer be a mistake; instead, such misunderstandings can prove fertile.