Basar Idjonati

Many Indonesian landscape artists in the early part of the twentieth century were clearly influenced by the somewhat romantic style landscape paintings of expatriate Europeans and Japanese living in Indonesia. However, there were also a number of indigenous and Indo- European realist landscape painters who, from the early to mid-twentieth century, developed a style commonly referred to as Mooi Indie.

This book has its genesis in trips to England and southern Europe taken in the 1970s where the author experienced, and was attracted to, the beauty and technical skills of eighteenth- to mid-nineteenth century naturalist English landscape school painters and the derivative French Barbizon plein - air school. Although influenced by the above schools, Mooi Indie painters had their own unique subject matter, perspective, brush strokes and palette which make their work instantly recognizable and eminently worthy of respect.

The largest concentration of Mooi Indie painters was in Bandung, West Java. Apart from Basuki Abdullah, Mas Pirngadie, Suriosubroto and Sukardji, most of their work is little known. One family living at Bandung included three superb Mooi Indie painters of which Basar Idjonate was the most distinguished.