Art of the Ancestors Timor Gallery Renovation
This month, Art of the Ancestors presents artworks from the island of Timor and the nearby island of Roti. Culturally, Timor is a complex and surprisingly diverse island. Today, the island is divided between Indonesia and the independent country of Timor Leste, an enclave that was formerly a Portuguese colony for 273 years until its independence in 1975.
While personal adornment and decorated effects are common in Timor, the core impetus for creating communal art and objects of virtue emanated from the ceremonial cycles within small princely kingdoms. These were presided over by a ruler who resided in complexes that included ritual centers and houses with carved architectural elements. Whether of patrilineal or matrilineal descent, Timorese societies generally embraced strict class divisions that included an entrenched aristocracy. With the arrival of the first Europeans in 1515 and the subsequent competition for sandalwood by the Portuguese and Dutch, some kingdoms prospered more than others, depending on patronage and shifting alliances. Competition, colonization, Christianity, and Timor Leste's war of independence suggest that, since the 17th century, many art forms and their stylistic variations disappeared before they could be properly studied. (See: Tribal Arts Magazine: Winter 2003: 100-107)
As noted by Nico de Jonge, Timor has only sparsely developed figurative carving as opposed to the nearby Western Moluccas with their vast array of deities and ancestor figures. With the exception of ai tos, images of founding ancestors found mostly in and around the Lospalos region in Timor Leste, old figurative carving from Timor is rare. For this month, we have added wonderful figures from the Museon in The Hague and a sensitively rendered statuette now in the Musée du quai Branly in Paris. A ritual rhythm pounder at Yale University Art Gallery is appointed with a graceful but stern portrait-like figure with a powerful visage. Timor is replete with visual surprises. In stone, there is a marvelous torso of an ancestor from the Museum Nasional in Jakarta, as well as a pleasing columnar figurative stone from the Brignoni collection in Lugano, and a well-know Tetun stone sacrificial post similar to those recorded in situ by Vroklage in 1953, ex-Jerome Joss collection, now housed at UCLA's Fowler Museum.
Arguably, the most emblematic objects that exist in large numbers and personify Tetun and Atoni speakers' creative vision and rich imagination are the island's finest antique ritual feasting spoons. These were largely fashioned from buffalo horn that was carefully heated and oiled to make it pliant prior to shaping and carving. They were often hallmarked by intricate patterns and designs starting at a spoon's stem, running through its handle to a tapered or figurative finial. (See: Eyes of the Ancestors: pages 254-55) More spoons have been added to our Timor Gallery from Yale University and the Dallas Museum of Art's collections. The most elegant handles depict lizards, crocodiles, totemic animals, and occasionally human figures. The background areas are often carved with geometric designs. Cutouts or piercings are used to create a sense of negative space and depth while tying the entire composition together. Uniting designs with undulating scrolling and geometric designs is common within various Indonesian art traditions.
In contradistinction, the wildness and asymmetry that one also encounters in some Timorese material hints at the East's cultural and aesthetic values in Melanesian art. The biola or ceremonial masks of the Tetun peoples often possess such qualities, particularly very old ones that were used in dances to celebrate war victories. The rarest masks exhibit multi-layers of patination from generations of wear. When not being used, these, along with other royal treasures, were stored in a village's ceremonial house or uma lulik. The Timor gallery has an exemplary cross-section of masks that attest to the quality, individuation, and broad variety of biola. The finest groups of these masks are at the Yale University Art Gallery and the quai Branly in Paris, with a notable marquee example in Dallas with a haunting visage and roving polished shell eyes.
As in other parts of the archipelago, the wide array of textile manufacture is the pre-imminent art of women in Timor. Tetun and Atoni speakers are known for their blankets and skirts. The immense variety of symmetrical and asymmetrical compositions in the most refined pieces equal the creativity and range of diversity of designs that one finds in other traditions, such as with the Iban of Sarawak or in Sumba textiles. To date, we have put a special emphasis on royal skirts from Belu, known as tais feto. The oldest weavings of the highest artistry with their deep maroon and indigo tones mixed with richly colored and costly imported silk can be exceptionally beautiful (See: Eyes of the Ancestors: pages 260-263). While textiles from just off Roti Island's coast are stylistically more limited, we have included a few old pieces in this month's expansion to reflect the dyer's art. Once perhaps a ritual center of sorts, or a place where a local bronze producing culture existed, Roti is a fascinating island. A number of ritual axes and ceremonial tablets or standards have been found there. These offerings include a famous Bronze-Iron Age ceremonial axe on permanent display at the Museum Nasional Indonesia in Jakarta, a janus faced fragment from Yale, and a remarkable intact standard currently stewarded by the Museum Mpu Tantular in Surabaya. These objects' thinness and fineness suggest that they were reserved for ceremonial or funerary purposes and that this region, and indeed Timor, were part of a vast ancient network of peoples and cultural exchanges.
Further insights into Timor's heritage can be found in the writings of David Hicks, Leonard Andaya, Herman Schulte Nordholt, Roy Hamilton, Joanna Barrkman, Ruth Barnes, Marie-Louise Nabholz-Kartaschoff, Nico de Jonge, Steven Alpert, and Robyn Maxwell.
— Steven G. Alpert