Wayang is Popular Visual Arts from Indonesia

One art form is so popular in parts of Indonesia (especially in Bali and Java) and so magnificently exemplifies indigenous artistry, storytelling, cultural values, and performative skill that it often appears on book covers and travel brochures as a kind of “emblem” for the country. The flat, leather puppets called wayang kulit (meaning “leather puppet”) represent many characters, animals, and natural forms as both a visual and performing art. Through fantastic imagery and a mystical theatrical ambience, wayang performances transport audiences to other worlds—whether of a glorious past or a godly realm. These puppets enact all-night dramas behind a stretched white cloth screen, backlit with a hanging oil lamp. Seated on the other side of the screen, the audience sees only the shadows of the puppets—thus wayang kulit is called “the shadow play.”

Although people view the wayang in performance as shadows, puppets receive colorful and meticulously painted details and often gold highlights. This renders them attractive as they are, but the colors usually do not appear through the screen to an audience. Carvers produce the puppets with special knives and chisels, using master stencils. The leather characters contain rich, lacy detail in the empty spaces carved through them: meanders, curves, eyes, mouths, patterns on clothing and hair, and small holes of various shapes or slits to define sections of each form. This demands great care and skill and each puppet requires highly specific facial features, body type, hairstyle, clothing, jewelry, and so forth, which must be clearly visible in shadow form.

Thus, while often beautifully painted, the exquisite quality of the carving enables the puppets to carry the show. When finished, leather puppets become mounted on bamboo or bone rods running spine-like up their centers for support and serving as handles for the dalang to hold from beneath. The same material forms rods to manipulate moveable parts of the characters, such as arms, legs, or opening jaws. Puppet making skill in Indonesia often passes down through families, as do many arts. Typically a master crafter creates the most intricate sections of a character and younger family members learn gradually through producing simpler parts of puppets.

The most refined puppets feature black, white, or yellow faces, while those of coarser manner wear red or pink-faces, with various shades from either extreme group coloring characters in between. A large stature symbolizes great physical strength and a violent nature or lack of self-control. This is in contrast to well-proportioned, medium-sized figures that do possess selfcontrol and finesse. A slim, small body is indicative of refinement.

Other popular types of puppets include flat, wooden puppets from eastern Java, called wayang klitik, and wooden, doll-like puppets from western Java, called wayang golek. All types include hinged, wooden arms attached to rods; however, the three-dimensional wayang golek puppets do not appear in shadow plays, but as they are—colorfully painted with specially sewn clothing of a variety of fabrics. These enact similar tales as do shadow puppets, with regional variations and modern innovations.

Some puppeteers take their characters to the streets, with mini-theaters pushed on carts. These are not the elite dalang puppet masters of renown, but common people trying to make a living through their arts and imaginations. The cover of an issue of the sophisticated Indonesian magazine Latitudes, published in Bali in English, features an engaging photograph of a one-toothed, old Javanese man with a small stage on a cart (made from an old bicycle) framing simply painted, three-dimensional puppets. The puppeteer in the picture smiles proudly behind his modest yet colorful mobile theater.

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