Raden Saleh, The Beginning of Modern Indonesian Painting by Werner Kraus

Goethe-Institut Indonesia together with the German Embassy proudly presents the first authoritative book on the life and work of the great Javanese artist. The large and opulently designed volume of almost 400 pages was written and composed by the curator of the exhibition Dr. Werner Kraus.

Kraus has dedicated great parts of his life as a scholar specialised in Southeast-Asian art to the multifaceted work of Raden Saleh. The book presents now the essence of his year long research and studies. It will surprise the reader by a fascinating essay on Saleh’s spectacular life as a painter, a scholar, a reformer of art and education, as a collector and preserver together with a sumptuous documentation of many of his works and a great range of illustrations, pictures and portraits of Raden Saleh—some published for the first time.

About the Book. An artist’s work must be viewed in the context of his or her time and intellectual environment. The book attempts to describe Raden Saleh’s life against the historical background of his era. The Javanese world from which he came is portrayed, as are the various European circumstances in which he found himself between 1829 and 1850 and the social and cultural reality of the even stronger colonial state into which Raden Saleh had to integrate himself upon his return from Europe.

The book is not intended to be a hermetically sealed textbook but wishes to tell the stories of his life and his works in an informal collection of essays. Illustrations and pictures are selected in much the same way: no attempt has been made to present an exhaustive list of Saleh’s works, nor to achieve any other form of completeness. Ultimately, however, this is abook which invokes the work and life of Raden Saleh like no other publication before.

Book Specifications

• Size 35 x 25 cm (portrait)

• Hardcover with laminated dust jacket

• 357 total pages in full color, printed on matt paper

• 123 pages of text with illustrations

• 46 pages of Raden Saleh's letters

• 35 pages of drawings and sketches

• 25 pages of lithographs

• 118 pages of paintings

• Limited first-edition copies availability

• Published by Goethe Institut Indonesia

• Exclusively distributed by Afterhours Books

Available in English - Bahasa Indonesia - German editions

for Rp 1,375,000 (Within Indonesia only, excluding shipment charge)

for USD 269 (International, including shipment)

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