A permanent exhibition room in Agung Rai Museum of Art (ARMA) is immortalized as Anak Agung Made Djelantik Room to honour Anak Agung Made Djelantik’s dedication for art and culture of Bali especially Balinese painting. This permanent exhibition room houses the watercolor paintings of Anak Agung Made Djelantik, the founder of Bali Walter Spies Foundation and the Honorary President of German Walter Spies Society. A strong bond between Walter Spies and Anak Agung Made Djelantik is showed by the position of this new room that is next to Walter Spies Room.

Left to Right: Bulan Trisna Djelantik (the doughter), Anak Agung Rai (owner of ARMA), Horst Jordt (President Walter Spies Society Germany), and the picture of Anak Agung Made Djelantik

The watercolor paintings of Anak Agung Made Djelantik which are exhibited here depict the fateful events in Anak Agung Made Djelantik life, from early in the childhood up to retirement years. The theme of the paintings range from the black magic to culture shock, from temple to boat race, in short the themes of the paintings cover all aspects of Anak Agung Made Djelantik life.

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When you visit Klungkung regency (State East of Denpasar) you have to visit its Museum – Museum Semarajaya — to know a little about the History of Klungkung. Museum Semarajaya is located in Semarapura City – the city of Klungkung — next to the tourist destination Kertha Gosa/Taman Gili (Old Court-Hall/Floating Hall). Whether you want it or not you have to enter Kertha Gosa first before going to the museum due to one entrance only is opened for these two areas. The ticket is very cheap, @Rp 5000,- for adults and @Rp 2000,- for children. Why it is cheap, because it will not be able to help the government to maintain those historic inheritances. But the good point is the local people will not feel difficult to pay for the entrance if they take their family members there. It means they will know and learn more about their ancestor history.

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That area is divided into three parts, the museum on the West, Taman Gili (Floating Hall) on the South, and Kertha Gosa (Old Court-Hall) on the North. There are wayang (consist of Hindu’s figures and stories) pictures at the ceiling of the Old Court-Hall which tell about the life after the death. There is also a big exit called Pamedalan Agung, it is said when a Dutch Soldier climbed and was at the top of Pamedalan Agung he saw a different place below not the ordinary one.

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Manusia Purba Museum is a small prehistoric museum with significant collections of prehistoric artifacts and prehistoric human’s bones. This unique museum is located in the west tip of Bali, in Gilimanuk, Jembrana regency. This museum houses collection of prehistoric bones and artifacts which were found by R.P. Soejoeno of Bali Archaeological Service during great excavation in 1962, in the village of Cekik, where the museum finally located.

Cekik site is one of the biggest necropolises found in Indonesia. In this site, the archeologists found various artifacts such as jewelries, bronze equipments, glass beads, pottery and sarcophagus, 100 complete prehistoric human skeletons adult were also found in an ancient graveyard in this excavation area.

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The moon of Pejeng which is kept in a shrine in Penataran Sasih temple can be considered as the most remarkable antiquities in Bali. This bronze drum is a sacred relic for Balinese, an artifact for the archeologist, and a curiosity for the tourists. The older generations of Balinese invented various myths around the drum. Some say that it is one of the subangs (ear-plugs) of the moon; while other say it is a sasih, the ‘moon’ itself.

Based the local legend, long ago the moon fell down to the earth, in Pejeng precisely, and was caught in a tree. It remained there giving a blinding light, preventing some thieves of the neighborhood from performing their nocturnal work. One of them, bolder than the rest, decided to extinguish the source of light; he climbed on the tree, and urinated on the moon. The ‘moon’ exploded, killing the thief, and fell to the ground in the shape of present drum, which explains why it is broken at the base. The people of Pejeng rescued it and placed on a high latticed shrine in the Penataran Sasih temple, the former home of demon-king Maya Danawa.

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In Bali, dances, dances dramas and music are almost as indispensable part of a sacrificial ritual as the offering itself. Like an extravagantly supplemented canang offering, they are offered to the gods at home and temple festivals. Like incense, music rises to heaven as a vehicle for the uranian powers to come down to man.

With rare exceptions, Balinese dances, dance dramas and music are functional arts, not art for art’s sake. All the music, performed and composed collectively, all choreography and all dances are ultimately rooted in religion. There is virtually no major ritual even which is not supplemented or enriched in one way or another by music, dance or theatre; in many way one must even speak of compulsory parts of a ritual cycle, of dramatized sacrifices without which a yajna would not be proper and complete. (Urs Ramseyer. The Art and Culture of Bali. Museum der Kulturen Basel and Schwabe & Co: Verlag, Basel, 2002).

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The sleepy fishing village of Sanur was developed as Bali’s first resort to accommodate the needs to international travelers. But long before the arrival of tourists, this enchanting beach front destination was home to renowned Belgian artist, Adrien Jean Le Mayeur de Merpres. His home
is now a museum and stands as an interesting site of historical significance located on the Sanur beach walkway just 30-meters north of the famous Bali Beach Hotel.

http://www.tropicalisland.de

Born in 1880, Le Mayeur was the youngest son of a noble Belgian family. As an adult he was passionate about travel and spent time exploring various countries before arriving on Bali’s shores in 1932. Spellbound by the sights and sounds of the island, he journeyed south to Denpasar
where he rented a small house and chose to live within a Balinese community, much to the displeasure to the ruling Dutch authorities.

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