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Ubud, a small town of 30,000 in the central foothills of the Indonesian island of Bali, is a magnet for writers and artists. The town, with its unique Balinese Hindu culture and architecture, and its surrounding villages, famous for their deep ravines and paddy fields, has enough to inspire any artist.
Both Ubud and Bali were not well known in the West, until the 1920s, when a mysterious Moscow-born artist came to live on the island. Walter Spies, who was born in 1895, was the son of the German consul general in Moscow.
“The Spies family, like the Brynners, moved to Russia in the 19th century in search of wealth,” says Alexei Dudnik, a historian and budding writer, who was in Bali for the Ubud Writer’s Festival. “Walter Spies was a third generation citizen of the Russian Empire, equally fluent in Russian and German.”
Dudnik adds that Walter Spies went to Dresden to study but spent his summers as a young adult with his family in Moscow and the Urals. “If anyone had a Russian soul, it was Spies, who longed to be in Russia,” he says.
By Walter SpiesSpies moved to Germany at the outbreak of the First World War and by the 1920s made a name for himself as a primitivist painter. He then travelled east and ended up in the Dutch East Indies, moving to Ubud in 1925, after briefly living in Yogyakarta.
“Spies was the father of the modern art movement in Bali,” says Nyoman Krisna, a Balinese artist. “The traditional artists only painted religious themes and used just red, white and black,” he adds. “Spies started painting images from daily life as well as the landscapes of the villages.”
In 1934, Spies, along with Dutch painter Rudolf Bonnet and the Raja of Putra Sukawati formed the Pita Maha Society, which completely transformed Balinese art. The society organized sales exhibitions of art from the island outside Bali. Within a few years, Balinese artwork became popular across Europe and the island transformed into a hotspot for artists.
By Walter SpiesThe society hosted many great writers and artists, including Charlie Chaplin and H. G. Wells. Spies was also a friend of Indian Nobel Laureate Rabindranath Tagore, who visited Ubud in 1927.
Another close writer friend of Spies was Austrian novelist Vicky Baum, who wrote ‘Love and Death in Bali.’ The book is a novel, based on the Dutch intervention in Bali in 1906.
In a scholarly piece for the Meridian 103 website, eminent Russian journalist Mikhail Tsyganov writes about how Spies popularized Wayang puppet theatre as well as the famous Ramayana Kecak dances that are on the itinerary of any visitor to the island of Bali.
By the end of 1930s, Spies was virtually living a retired life in a small mountain village called Iseh. At the outbreak of the Second World War, the authorities in the Dutch East Indies arrested and deported the artist, since he was an ethnic German.
The Japanese Navy attacked the ship that was transporting him to Ceylon. The Dutch crew abandoned the ship, but did not release the prisoners, leaving them to slowly drown to death.
By Walter Spies
The house in Iseh where Spies lived is virtually a pilgrimage spot. The list of visitors included David Bowie and Mick Jagger.
The house is eight kilometers from the summit of Gunung Agung, Bali’s highest volcanic mountain, which the Balinese believe to be the resting place of the gods. It’s a common sight to see writers and artists seeking inspiration in the house, from where one can see a tranquil lake and the majestic volcano.
In 2015, Spies is all but forgotten in Russia. Given the fact that the primitivist painter was born and brought up in the country, Russia would be justified to at least partly reclaim his legacy.
