Buraq and Landscapes: Anchoring Islamic Identities and Images in Works of Modern Indonesian Art
Abstract in English: As a semi-mythical steed that accompanies the Prophet Muhammad in the isra/mi’raj narrative, the Buraq occupies an important place in Muslim imaginations across the globe. Its human-animal composite form lives as an oral and visual art tradition that has spread with Islam in the Indo-Malay Archipelago since at least the thirteenth century. This paper attends to how the Buraq inhabits cultural and spiritual landscapes in the works of two Indonesian modern artists, A.D. Pirous (b. 1932) and Haryadi Suadi (1939-2016). My analysis unpacks the multiplicity of the Buraq by looking at how Pirous and Haryadi reimagine its form and transform its function according to their genealogy of artistic practices, as well as their religious and cultural backgrounds. By focusing on the Buraq in works of Indonesian modern art, this paper shifts the discursive space of Islamic Art from the Islamic heartland to Southeast Asia. Furthermore, by focusing on artists’ reinterpretations of being Muslim and modern at the same time, it aims to disrupt the secular narrative of modern art history. The collaborative, accumulative, and connected nature of the Buraq makes visible the multiple realities of Islam and compels us to foreground heterogeneity in our understandings and experiences of modernity and modern art.
Abstract in Bahasa Indonesia: Buraq menempati posisi yang signifikan dalam imajinasi Muslim di dunia sebagai tunggangan Nabi Muhammad S.A.W. dalam narasi isra/mi’raj. Bentuk komposit Buraq yang setengah manusia dan setengah binatang hidup sebagai tradisi oral dan visual yang menyebar di Kepulauan Indo-Malaysia bersama dengan Islam paling tidak sejak abad ke-13. Artikel ini berbicara tentang bagaimana Buraq menghuni lanskap kultural dan spiritual dalam karya dua seniman modern Indonesia, A.D. Pirous (b. 1932) dan Haryadi Suadi (1939-2016). Analisa dalam artikel ini membongkar multiplisitas Buraq dengan menilik bagaimana Pirous dan Haryadi mengimajinasikan ulang bentuk dan fungsi Buraq menurut genealogi praktik seni dan latar keagamaan dan kultural masing-masing. Dengan fokus terhadap Buraq dalam karya seni rupa modern Indonesia, artikel ini menggeser ruang diskursif mengenai Seni Rupa Islam dari wilayah pusat Islam (Timur Tengah, Persia, Asia Selatan) ke Asia Tenggara. Lebih jauh lagi, dengan fokus terhadap reinterpretasi seniman tentang menjadi Muslim dan modern secara bersamaan, artikel ini bertujuan untuk mengusik narasi sekuler dalam penulisan sejarah seni rupa modern. Sifat Buraq yang kolaboratif, akumulatif, dan terhubung menjadikan realitas majemuk mengenai Islam terlihat dengan jelas dan menarik kita untuk mengedepankan pemahaman dan pengalaman yang heterogen tentang modernitas dan seni rupa modern.
Citation: Rahadiningtyas, Anissa. “Buraq and Landscapes: Anchoring Islamic Identities and Images in Works of Modern Indonesian Art” The Jugaad Project, 22 Jul. 2020, thejugaadproject.pub/buraq-and-landscapes [date of access]
Introduction
The semi-mythical steed of the Prophet Muhammad, known as the Buraq, occupies an important place in the imaginations of many Muslim societies, including in Indonesia. The Buraq is associated with the story of the Prophet’s miraculous night journey and ascension known as isra and mi’raj. The image of this majestic being – half-human and half quadruped animal, often depicted with wings – has accompanied the spread of Islam in the Indo-Malay Archipelago. While several scholars of Islamic art have written extensively about the Buraq, especially in Persian and Persianate visual arts, more scholarship is needed to discuss the presence of the Buraq in Southeast Asia.[i] In order to push the limits of Islamic art history even further, this paper highlights the continued preoccupation and fascination with the Buraq in works of modern art, namely of two artists from Indonesia: A.D. Pirous (b. 1932) and Haryadi Suadi (1938-2016).
This article on Buraq emphasizes notions of connectedness, mobility, and genealogy, as of my larger project on Islam and modern art in Indonesia. The project follows Islamic images, objects, and ideas that moved and were taken up by the intellectual and trade networks across the Indian Ocean,[ii] advancing a historical narrative that connects the development of Islam in Southeast Asia to that of Islam in the global world (Azra 2004; Bruinessen 2007; Tagliacozzo 2013). This project also attempts to break away from the legacy of colonial scholarship in the fields of Southeast Asian Art, Islamic Art, and Islamic Studies where one has to deal with the enduring construction of the region as less Islamic (Sears 1996; Shatanawi 2014) and its modernism as a derivative of the West. Even the term “modern Islamic art” is still fraught with tensions and contradictions due to the construction of Islamic Art history as a field that lacks a disciplinary foundation and is riddled with Orientalist legacy.[iii] However, as argued by Iftikhar Dadi (2010; 2016), these factors are precisely what allows one to set a critical genealogy of modern Islamic art as artists constantly search for its discursive and aesthetic grounds.
Figure 1. A.D. Pirous. Sura Isra II: Homage to My Mother. 1982. Screenprint on paper. 82 x 56 cm. (Source: Author’s documentation at Serambi Pirous, Bandung)
Figure 2. Haryadi Suadi. Buroq. 1986. Enamel paint on glass. 83.5 x 79.5 cm. (Source: Photographed by Michael Binuko and Kemas Indra Bisma, author’s documentation).
The Buraq has undergone profound mutations from verbal imagery to graphic images. The image of the Buraq that we encounter today in many places in the Islamic world, including in Indonesian art, is imagined out of different features borrowed from vocabularies of majestic animals and composites to represent the ways in which the Buraq is able to leap and ascend both physically and metaphorically. In its many forms and uses in rituals and performances in the archipelago, the Buraq assumes different roles related to its ability to ascend and transcend physical and spiritual spaces, expanding its function from the isra/mi’raj narrative. By focusing on the works of Pirous and Haryadi,[iv] I suggest that the composite nature of the Buraq is related to its ability to change and still be recognized as Islamic. In turn, this allows one to look at the heterogeneous reconfigurations of Islam in the archipelago and the experience of modernism in the non-West as equally valid, connected, and authentic.
In Pirous and Haryadi's works (Figures 1 and 2), the Buraq floats above an already sacred landscape, inscribed with Arabic calligraphy in gold and white. I use the term landscape in relation to the religious and the spiritual to capture dimensions beyond the visual conception of landscape as a painting genre in art history. Landscapes in these works are symbolic and abstract, mediated by the artist's memories and reinterpretations of space through the utilization of icons particular to each artist. The Simmelian (1912) modern theorization of landscape still informs my use of this term as an aesthetic demarcation, and a separation in the infinite flux of nature, resulting from the subject's or artist’s contemplation of a portion of nature.
A.D. Pirous's serigraph Sura Isra II: Homage to My Mother (1982) and Haryadi Suadi's glass painting Buroq (1986) (Figures 1 and 2) embody the malleability of the Buraq as it speaks to the multiple realities of both Islam and modern art in Indonesia. As a proponent of both modernism and modern Islam, Pirous actively shaped the discourse of modern Islamic art in Indonesia that remains dominant until today.[v] ‘Islamic art’ for Pirous is an art that manifests the artist's, as well as the viewer's, personal piety, ethical responsibility, and aspirations to be a good Muslim (George 2002; 2010). Scholars of Indonesian Islam observe that the notion of "good" Muslims during the New Order period (1966–1998) generally prioritizes those who subscribed, in varying degrees, to the reformist/modernist and more orthodox practices and interpretations of Islam (Bruinessen & Day-Howell 2007; Hooker 2019).[vi] While Pirous occupies a prominent place as an artist and intellectual both in the history of modern art and modern Islamic art in Indonesia, Haryadi's position is comparatively marginal in both narratives.[vii] Despite Haryadi's active participation in exhibitions of Islamic art with Pirous since 1979 onwards, his works are hardly considered as 'Islamic' as they are perceived to be merely performative and not sufficiently devotional or contemplative.[viii] His commitment to his Javanese/Cirebonese conception of aesthetics also poses a challenge to the mainstream modernist aesthetics of the Bandung School that dominated the exhibitionary and discursive spaces during the New Order period.[ix]
Bandung and Modern Islamic Art
Figure 3. A.D. Pirous (left) in his studio holding a thank you card that I made for him, appropriating his print Sura Isra II; and old photo of Haryadi Suadi (right) posing with his woodcuts and print works. (Source: Author's documentation)
Both Pirous and Haryadi graduated from an art training institution in Bandung, West Java, where Dutch teachers directly transmitted the principles of international modernism. Generational differences, however, prompted them to negotiate different reinterpretations of modernity and modernism. Universitaire Leergang voor de Opleiding van Tekenleraren was established in 1947 as a technical school to produce drafters and art teachers. The school changed its name after Indonesia regained full sovereignty, and today it is known as the Fakultas Seni Rupa dan Desain (FSRD – Faculty of Art and Design) under Institut Teknologi Bandung (ITB – Bandung Institute of Technology). During the New Order period, artists from Bandung and their modernist aesthetics rose to dominate the Indonesian art scene as they generally conformed to the regime's policy of culture-not-politics and ideas of modernity.
Enrolled at the school in 1955, Pirous studied directly under the Dutch teachers, who taught him the language and techniques of formalism through the works of European masters, from Cezanne to Picasso. Pirous and his more senior colleagues, such as Ahmad Sadali (1924-1987), Srihadi Soedarsono (b. 1931), Mochtar Apin (1923-1994), and several others, became instructors and continued to promote abstraction and the Western universalist notion of modernism. Abstract painting, print, and sculpture as artistic media and aesthetics derived from Cubism and Abstract Expressionism were considered to be the highest expression of modernity. Any modes outside of it often inhabited a marginal space and were relegated as low art, craft, kitsch, and other categories of “non-art.” During his master program in the US at the Rochester Institute of Technology (1969-1971), however, Pirous realized the need to construct his identity as an Indonesian in order to be recognized internationally as a modern artist (George 2002; 2010). He began to explore and experiment with his Acehnese ethnic visual traditions, "modernizing" what he perceived to be traditional by using the language of modernist abstraction. Sura Isra II (Figure 1) reflects this mode of artistic practice as it boldly juxtaposes Acehnese visualities with formalist composition and new experimentation with serigraphy. This move coincided with the "traditional turn" in Soeharto's cultural policy that sought to manufacture a cohesive national cultural identity using Indonesia's ethnic traditions (Pemberton 1994).
Haryadi, the second artist whose work is considered here, joined the newly opened printmaking studio at ITB in 1964 and studied under Mochtar Apin.[x] Even though Apin was an ardent modernist, he made space for Haryadi to break away from the school's canonical practice of formalist abstraction and the European post-impressionism of Van Gogh and Cezanne.[xi] Haryadi was drawn not only to the visuality and materiality of Cirebon, located in the north coast of West Java, where he grew up but also to its spiritual and mystical dimensions. Since his time as a student, he predominantly worked with Javanese shadow puppet aesthetics while engaging with the works and ideas of a Japanese print artist, Shiko Munakata.[xii] His Buroq form (Figure 2), particularly its head, takes the characteristics of a Javanese shadow puppet character with its slit eye and slender nose.
In the 1970s, Haryadi shared Pirous's idea to return to "kebudayaan Indonesia" or authentic Indonesian culture, crafting new artistic practices with a language that was both modern and Indonesian. Haryadi's approach, however, was arguably more radical than that of Pirous, as he also took up Munakata's idea of discarding the methods and materials of Western painting and returning to indigenous aesthetics.[xiii] Haryadi believed in the exploration of visuality and local methods, materials, ways of seeing, processes, and techniques, or in what Sanento Yuliman (1969; 2001) terms as “seni rupa yang lain” (loosely translated as “the other art/aesthetics”). Sanento approaches modernism and modern art as an open concept that would acknowledge the diversity and multiplicity of modernism in a particular place. It is perhaps not a far-fetched proposition to consider the Buraq as the (contextualized) representation of this open concept of modernism’s multiplicity and particularity. Haryadi's works, and Pirous's to some extent, despite his espousal of modernist abstraction, seek to return to this “other” aesthetics marginalized by the tradition of Western modern art.
Modern Islamic Art and Lukisan Kaligrafi
Figure 4. Catalog of A.D. Pirous's retrospective exhibition in 1985. (Source: Author's documentation taken with permission from A.D. Pirous)
The development of modern Islamic art in Indonesia began with the calligraphic works of Ahmad Sadali in the late 1960s and A.D. Pirous and early 1970s.[xiv] Sadali and Pirous began to produce “lukisan kaligrafi” or “calligraphic painting,” incorporating Arabic/Quranic calligraphy into abstract paintings. While the term had already been used in several exhibitions in the 1980s, it is only in Pirous's solo exhibition in 1985 that it was more clearly defined. Pirous's colleague and one of the writers in the exhibition catalog, Machmud Buchari, defined lukisan kaligrafi as "painting that adopts the forms and characters of calligraphy and transforms it into a new and complete form" (1985, 22). The term "lukisan" or "painting" is used as a construct to redefine calligraphy in this new form unbound by the rules and traditions of Islamic calligraphy and thus signifying its modernity. Sadali's and Pirous's consistent labor in producing lukisan kaligrafi and in creating exhibitions of Islamic art cemented their names as pioneering figures in modern Islamic art in Indonesia.
Figure 5. The modern Islamic art section at the 1991 Festival Istiqlal in Jakarta. One can see the dominance of lukisan kaligrafi in the selection of artworks. (Source: Author's documentation of A.D. Pirous’s archives on Festival Istiqlal, reproduced with permission from A.D. Pirous)
By the 1980s and 1990s, a practice of lukisan kaligrafi that departed from Sadali's and Pirous's representation came to dominate the public's perception and artists' reinterpretations of modern Islamic art. This is evident in the exhibitions of Islamic art during the period that culminated in the organization of the Festival Istiqlal in 1991 and 1995. A canon of modern Islamic art coalesced through state-sponsored and private-sponsored group exhibitions of lukisan kaligrafi, increased demand for lukisan kaligrafi in the art market, and critics' effort to define modern Islamic art in the 1980s and 1990s through lukisan kaligrafi. This canon, however, was generally narrow as it included artists who worked mostly with painting, calligraphy, and abstraction in its different forms.[xv]
The close interconnectedness of proper Islamic religiosity according to modernist and more orthodox Islam and artistic practice largely informed the production of knowledge about modern Islamic art in Indonesia. Even though Sadali and Pirous evince renewed attitudes towards calligraphy by bringing out its expressive qualities and engaging with it through individual exploration, they are always driven by a higher purpose and ethical responsibility as Muslims. The conceptualization of “Islamic” as religious that reflects the artist's personal piety also became a determinant in constructing the canon of modern Islamic art. Materially, this personal piety and ethical responsibility manifests in the importance of legibility and correctness in inscribing Quranic calligraphy. Artists were ready to relinquish their creative freedom in order to achieve what Kenneth George terms as “Quranic aesthetics” (2002, 27). [xvi]
Figure 6. Details of A.D. Pirous's Sura Isra II and Haryadi Suadi's Buroq.
Sura Isra II by Pirous constructs an illusory deep architectural space leading to the legible sacred writing of the first verse of Sura Isra. Written in white and gold against the blue backdrop, the verse chronicles the Prophet's miraculous night journey from Mecca to Jerusalem. Despite its compactness, the calligraphy is still easy to read, as the form of each letter follows the convention of calligraphic writing. Haryadi's golden inscription that encompasses the glass surface in Buroq, on the other hand, challenges legibility. Even though the letters are clearly derived from Arabic, their forms are inconsistent, perhaps due to the difficulty of writing backwards on the slippery surface of glass. In contrast, Pirous's calligraphy materializes perfectly, enabled by the affordance of serigraphy that allow the artist to control mistakes and produce proofs before printing the edition. The strings of letters in Haryadi's calligraphy also hardly form legible words or sentences other than the basmala on the top part of the composition and the occasional recognizable الله or prepositions such as في (Arabic: 'at,' or 'in') and إلى (Arabic: 'to'). Even though, diacritics and star signs are present that might index breaks between sentences, Haryadi's calligraphy still eludes its readers.
Figure 7. Another example of Haryadi Suadi's glass painting that incorporates isim and rajah titled Harimau dan Isim (Tiger and Isim), 1979. (Source: Author's documentation, photographed by Michael Binuko and Kemas Indra Bisma)
Figure 8. Example of a cloth with isim and talismanic diagrams in Haryadi Suadi’s family collection. (Source: Author’s documentation)
Haryadi's calligraphic structure in Buroq also defies order as there is no clear direction of reading. In the right corner of the composition, for example, the writing fills the space between the built form and the frame vertically instead of horizontally from right to left. This recalls the ways in which some Islamic manuscripts are written, at times with addendum or notes on the margins that are positioned diagonally or vertically. It is also important to note that most of Haryadi's works do not incorporate Quranic verses unlike those of Pirous. Haryadi was more interested in Islamic talismanic writings, diagrams, and symbols that embody mystical attributes often known as isim and rajah. I suggest that it is in this context that one must look at Haryadi's persistence about illegibility. In talismanic writing, illegibility is crucial as it ties to notions of secrecy and sacredness. This practice of producing and circulating talismanic objects is commonly found in Cirebon, as in the rest of Java. Isim and rajah can be written on different kinds of media including paper, cloth, woodcarvings, glass paintings, and even on the human body. With the coming of Islam in the archipelago since at least the thirteenth century,[xvii] Arabic replaced Sanskrit and its writing system as an authoritative and religious language and script (Ricci 2011). The sources of Arabic writings on isim and rajah generally vary, ranging from Quranic verses, Hadith Qudsi, to independent Arabic letters imbued with specific cosmic importance. Sometimes they are written with numbers and numerical diagrams or a combined form of the different sources (Figure 8). Isim and rajah are usually tailored to the need of the individual for whom the inscriptions are made. Most of these objects require the maker to possess a high level of knowledge and power derived from Sufi doctrinal teachings and rituals (Karyono 2001, 157-7). Haryadi's preoccupation with marginal forms of Sufi materialities in Cirebon/Java further positions him in the fringe of the modern Islamic art canon.
The Buraq in Acehnese and Cirebonese Landscapes
The imagining of the Buraq initially began in oral traditions that developed into verbal imagery before it was written in a hadith (a record of words, actions, and the silent approval of the Prophet Muhammad) compiled by Imam Bukhari, a Persian Islamic scholar. The hadith accompanies the first verse of Sura Isra that narrates the Prophet's journey from Mecca to Jerusalem in a single night and explicates the presence of the Buraq that is not mentioned in the Quran (Gruber 2010, 2). Since its initial appearance in writing, the image of the Buraq experienced several transformations in Islamic literature and art as it gradually acquired its popular form as a hybrid creature with a human (often female) head and the body of a white animal with majestic wings. Numerous visual illustrations involving the Buraq and the Prophet's ascension can be found in Persian manuscripts, often depicting the Prophet physically and metaphorically riding the Buraq. Gruber (2018) points out that images of the Prophet were largely produced in Persian and Turkish lands between 1200 and 1600 C.E., where general aversion towards figural imagery was not as strong as in the Arab lands (13). From the fifteenth century onwards, however, new alternatives arose of depicting the Prophet as a golden bundle, a white ball, or a text (17). The abstraction of the Prophet's figural representation into a symbolic or metaphorical representation validates Muhammad’s prophethood and his proximity to God, as exemplified by the mi'raj story.
In the context of the lack of physical representation of the Prophet and the elevation of the figure of Muhammad into an abstracted realm, the image of the Buraq and its physical representation seem to become more crucial in the collective imagination due to its function as an index of the concrete presence of the Prophet. When the representation of the Prophet loses or leaves its physicality, more effort is made to define the representation of the Buraq. But since the Buraq has no original image, and always transforms itself, it remains open to various interpretations and elaborations. These interpretations manifest specific symbolic ideas that are important to various social groups and religious communities. The power of Buraq imagery thus lies in its malleability and ability to continue to transform itself according to the symbolic meanings, experiences, and histories invested in it by different actors.
This notion of collaboration, accumulation, and connection perhaps resonates with Dana Rush’s (2010) idea of the “unfinished” where she locates the practice of making Vodun devotional objects/images in West Africa and the Caribbean as reification of Deleuze and Guattari’s “logic of the and.” This logic, as Rush succinctly puts, is the “logic of conjunction and connections” that “seeks to situate thought and action in the anticipatory realm of immanence,” and “corresponds to infinite growth and growth potential” (70). Unlike the Vodun objects, the Buraq itself is less an object of devotion. It is more of a symbolic vehicle to attain spiritual unity and a metaphorical device of the Prophethood of Muhammad, possessing an agentive power to enhance the act of devotion/contemplation or the life-cycle rituals. Similar to the Vodun shrines that are rhizomatic and “[incarnate] multiplicity” (70), the Buraq serves to establish connection between different Muslim communities across the Islamic world and to validate these communities’ religio-cultural expressions as Islamic.
The Buraq in both Pirous and Haryadi's works is transposed onto landscapes that reveal a genealogical connection back to the works and materialities specific to Aceh and Cirebon. Pirous's print Sura Isra II anchors the textilic Buraq over a gold-thread embroidery known in Aceh as kasab that his mother made for his sister wedding when he was growing up in Meulaboh, a small port city southeast to Aceh's capital (Buchari 1985, 11-12). It is further framed by a colorful abstraction of an Acehnese tabir or ceremonial curtain (George 2002; 2010). In comparison, Haryadi's shadow puppet Buraq floats above the depictions of Cirebonese traditional architecture framed with two trees that resemble Javanese kayon, Cirebonese rock pattern, and potted plants on the bottom of the composition.
Figure 9. Acehnese ceremonial hanging, early 20th century, cotton, wool, silk, gold thread, sequins, glass beads, mica, applique, couching, embroidery, NGA 1984.1986. (Source: National Gallery of Australia.)
Sura Isra II is a manifestation and reproduction of Pirous's memory over the landscape of Meulaboh, abstracted by actively reimagining his experience of making the kasab with his mother and the Buraq that accompanies his grandmother’s story about the Prophet. The juxtaposition of the Buraq with the kasab also has a precedent in the use of the Buraq in Acehnese kasab design (Figure 9). The kasab in Aceh generally serves as a ceremonial cloth for life-cycle rituals, including birth, circumcision, wedding, death, and the return of pilgrims from Mecca (Leigh 1993). The presence of the Buraq on the ceremonial hanging provides a means for a spiritual and metaphorical ascension. For the wedding ritual, the kasab develops from a large wall hanging to a decoration that covers the whole wedding pavilion, extending from the walls to the royal throne of the bride and groom. Pirous's print incorporates one of the elements of the kasab used for a chair cushion that is now hanging in his home in Bandung. All of the kasab elements contain symbolism, messages, and meanings, closely related to Islam (Hermaliza et.al 2013).
Barbara Leigh (1993) associates the use of vegetal motif on the kasab that is derived from local plants to the concept of taman surga or “the garden of paradise,” as a wedding can also be construed as the paradise on earth (182). In addition, Leigh brings forward the notion of surga (paradise/heaven) and the imagination of a beautiful and majestic garden as an integral part of heaven within Acehnese and Islamic perceptions in general. She further claims that the notion of surga also reiterates the symbiotic and Sufistic elements of Islam in Aceh.[xviii] That, "It is the concept of heaven held by the mystics, and earlier of the Hindu-Buddhists which infuse the embroidered cloths in Aceh" (ibid: 179). Kartomi (2004) also suggests that the color scheme used in the kasab design, among other objects of Acehnese visual and performing arts, also corresponds to the concept of the four cardinal directions informed by Acehnese pre-Islamic cosmological belief systems (9).The kasab transforms the previously secular and neutral architectural space into a ritual space and turns it into a taman surga (garden of paradise) through its floral designs derived from local Acehnese vegetation. Its design enhances the efficacy of the wedding ritual by emphasizing and reinforcing the experience of spiritual unity.
The Buraq on Pirous's silkscreen, therefore, reiterates the sacred connection to the use of the Buraq on the kasab ceremonial hanging in life-cycle rituals. The Buraq in both the kasab and in Pirous's print signifies ascension, extended beyond the Prophet's mi'raj to include ascension during the liminal stages of human's lives. Pirous maintains the connection of the Buraq to the isra and mi'raj narrative by couching the calligraphic rendition of Sura Isra in the middle of the kasab. The Quranic calligraphy serves to inspire Pirous's artistic experimentation and inward search for religiosity that are further enlivened by the Buraq's liminal visuality as well as by the act of producing multiple editions of the print. The repetitive nature of printmaking at times allows artists to enter a ritual-like process, allowing artists such as Pirous to engage in the artmaking process as an act of worship and devotion to God.
Figure 10. Buraq stencil design for Cirebonese glass painting. Collection of Haryadi Suadi. (Source: Author's documentation)
The Buraq and the isra/mi'raj narrative helped to spread Islam in the archipelago. Even though it is hard to find, the Buraq occasionally features in Javanese shadow puppet performances. The Buraq also occupies a significant place in the Cirebonese glass painting tradition as one of the main types of Islamized composite creatures that are widely copied and circulated amongst glass painters. These stencils on paper serve as blueprints for the artist to trace the lines and forms onto glass to be further complemented with other Cirebonese motifs.[xix] Along with the calligraphic Buraq (Figure 10), these images display the accommodation of pre-Islamic imageries and symbols and the acceptance of Islam in Cirebon, West Java. As we can see in Figure 11, most of the composite figures, such as the Hindu deity Ganesha, the Buraq, the shadow puppet Semar, and banteng windu, are composed of Arabic calligraphic lines that articulate the phrase of tawhid or the expression of the oneness of God in Islam.[xx] In Cirebonese visual and spiritual tradition, these motifs are known as srabad, a visual concept connoting the shift in time, religious lives, and civilization from Hindu-Buddhism to Islam. Some of them are derived and developed out of Sufi manuscripts of the Shattariya Order, significantly practiced in Cirebon.[xxi]
Figure 11. Stencils of Cirebonese hybrid figures for glass painting that display the acceptance of Islam in Cirebon. Collection of Haryadi Suadi. (Source: Author's documentation)
Even though Haryadi was a master printmaker and produced numerous prints throughout his artistic career, he is more well-known for his glass painting. Haryadi began to explore glass painting as a medium after his meeting with a well-known Cirebonese glass painter, Rastika, at an exhibition in Bandung in 1974. As an artist and lecturer who worked under the spirit of modernization promoted by the Indonesian state and bolstered by the modernist school such as ITB, Haryadi envisioned "modernizing" the "traditional" artmaking practices like glass painting.[xxii] While learning by copying the traditional methods and patterns of Cirebonese glass painting from Rastika, Haryadi promoted visual experimentations that aimed to break the strictly formulaic modes of glass painting.[xxiii] Haryadi introduced the use of different colors, compositions, and textures while adhering to images that carried spiritual and symbolic significance. From Haryadi, Rastika learned to bring forward his own artistic reinterpretations of elements in the centuries-old images that have been continuously replicated on glass as well as on other materials, such as batik cloths and woodcarvings.[xxiv]
The origins of glass painting in Cirebon, and perhaps other parts of Java, as a practice is relatively unknown with speculation that it came from China or Persia in the seventeenth century. Similar to many artistic practices and performances in Cirebon, glass painting possesses ethical and philosophical meanings related to Islam, in particular, to the development of the Shattariyya Sufi order in Cirebon that began at around the same time.[xxv] Today, several glass painters in Cirebon are still practicing Sufis; some even came from a royal lineage of the Cirebonese Sultanate.[xxvi] One of the most important glass painters in Cirebon, Elang Aruna Martaningrat (1925-1987), for example, was a Shattariya mursid or teacher who is attributed with developing calligraphic motifs depicting Cirebonese hybrid beings, such as banteng windu, srabad ganesh, and semar (Figure 11). The Shattariya in Java is one of several Sufi orders that has a long history in the archipelago and has adapted Islam to local cultural practices and pre-existing religious symbolism and values, such as Animinism and Hindu-Buddhism. For this reason, modernist and more orthodox Muslims often condemn local Sufi orders as heterodox, antiquated, and incompatible with rational and critical thinking, and thus modernity. However, Haryadi's works show the ability of Sufi mystical doctrines, increasingly marginalized in the 1990s, to maintain and expand their presence into the cultural space of urban elites in Bandung.
Figure 12. Sunyaragi Cave in Cirebon. (Source: Author's documentation)
Haryadi's glass painting situates the Buraq over the architectural, cultural, and spiritual landscape of Cirebon. The shadow-puppet-like, white Buraq with wings outlined in gold floats in between the crescent moon and the sun, symbols used in the Javanese divination system and calendar known as pawukon. Below the Buraq is a simple façade of Cirebonese vernacular architecture flanked by two kayon-like trees and Cirebonese rock pattern known as wadasan. Kayon in Javanese shadow puppet tradition refers to the mountain-like (gunungan) or tree-like form, that indicates the start and end of a performance. Wright notes that kayon or gunungan form presents itself continuously in modern artworks since the ideas surrounding the image of the mountain or tree as a cosmic bridge to the higher realm still resonate in modern Indonesia (1994, 35). The two kayon hug the built form in Buroq that seems to replicate a meditation site in Cirebon known as the Sunyaragi Cave (Figure 10). The cave complex with its simple wooden structure of a two-tiered roof that resembles a pagoda is said to be the place where royal members of the Cirebonese Sultanate and the subsequent smaller principalities used to go for tapa or meditation.[xxvii] The wavy rock structure is the basis for the wadasan pattern and is traditionally paired with the cloud pattern or megamendung. According to palace guide, the rock is believed to have been brought to Cirebon from the southern coast of Java, where Ratu Kidul, the legendary Queen of the South Sea resides.[xxviii] These rocks were transplanted onto Cirebon's natural, mystical, and artistic landscapes in sacred sites, palaces, batiks and glass paintings. In Haryadi’s painting, separated by the change in the background color of Buroq from green to burnt orange, the depiction of a typical Javanese residence sits below. The center is an open space known as a pendopo constructed by posts, a wooden fence, and a roof without walls. As space that mediates the outside world and the living space, the “inner” and “outer” (Lukito 2016: 109), the pendopo connects to the walled area of the house on its left and right side. In the front yard, potted plants further adorn the space. The compositional division into three horizontal spaces thus signifies different realms: the upper realm inhabited by the Buraq and the celestial signs; the middle as the spiritual bridge symbolized by the kayon, the meditation space, and wadasan; and the lower realm where the human resides.
Conclusion
This paper has explored how the Buraq moves out of its original function and space in the narrative of the Prophet's mi'raj. The Buraq is no longer exclusively reserved as a vehicle for the enlightened spirit of the Prophet as it becomes available to be owned collectively and individually within the umma. As shown through the examples of the use of the Buraq in life-cycle rituals and Pirous and Haryadi's works, the Buraq's nature as a composite allows for specific religious and cultural identities of being Muslim and being Acehnese and Cirebonese to be embodied and performed at the same time. Pirous and Haryadi show heterogeneous reinterpretations of being Muslim and modern through situating the Buraq within constellations that are particular to them. Pirous's carefully written Quranic verse that accompanies the Buraq demonstrates his method and conviction to "membumikan Bahasa langit" or "to ground the language of heaven" to instill spiritual reflection (Mamannoor 2002). Pirous's "Quranic aesthetics" and formalist language of representation defined the dominant practice of modern Islamic art in Indonesia from the 1970s until today. Haryadi's illegible calligraphy and his conscious move to reject modernist aesthetics by centering Cirebonese material, visual, and spirituals tradition to surround his Buraq challenged both the orthodoxy of Indonesian Islam and the mainstream practice of modern Islamic art. While the Buraq in each of Pirous and Haryadi’s anchors the experience of being Muslim by ways of inhabiting its respective spiritual and cultural landscapes, it also connects and ties together these multiple reinterpretations and practices of Islam, regardless of their levels of orthodoxy, and its cultural expressions as part of Islamic visual traditions. The nature of the Buraq as a composite image resulting from networks of exchange in a nonlinear process also works to consider the rhizomatic experience of modernity and modernism beyond the Western context.
Acknowledgments
I wish to thank Urmila Mohan for editorial guidance; the anonymous peer reviewers for their generous suggestions; and Alexandra Dalferro for her support, in many shapes and forms, during the writing of this paper.
Endnotes
(i) There is little scholarship that specifically discusses the Buraq in the visual arts tradition in Southeast Asia even though there are many objects of rituals and performances that feature the image of the Buraq. Tom Cooper’s article on the male and female Buraq from Lombok (2001) that are now in the collection of the Herbert F. Johnson Museum is one of the few. Abraham Sakili’s book (2003) on the visual arts of Muslims in the Philippine notes the existence of making the Buraq sculpture. Fernando-Amilbangsa (2005) also writes about a carving tradition and the visual arts of Muslims in Mindanao that shows the spread of the Buraq image there. However, the use of the Buraq there is not deeply analyzed.
(ii) I use the term “Islamic” to refer to not only practices that relate to the religious aspects, but also to cultural practices by Muslims that cannot be easily categorized as “Islamic” according to the dominant interpretation of Islam. In 1974, Marshall Hodgson proposed a distinction between the term “Islamic” that he argues only encompasses aspects that pertain to Islam "… in the proper, the religious sense." He separates it from “Islamicate” to refer to "the social and cultural complex historically associated with Islam and the Muslims" (Hodgson 1974, 57-9). While the term “Islamicate” is appealing for avoiding the long debate of what can be considered as “Islamic,” it also presents a downfall as it assumes that any cultural products are separated from or devoid of proper religiosity. Shahab Ahmed engages in length with Hodgson's idea and criticizes the use of “Islamicate” for the above reason as he argues that "… the vocabularies and meanings of the discourses and practices of literature, art, politics, wine-drinking, etcetera, appear anything except distinct and separable from the vocabularies and meanings of the revelation to Muhammad – rather, as we have seen, they are perfused with, implicated in, and constructed of the same working elements, so that it is not at all clear how 'culture' is to be filtered out of 'religion,' or 'religion' distilled out of 'culture.'” Ahmed also states that the notion of “Islamicate” is grounded in the idea that there is a true and authentic Islam that has to be distinguished “… from the human and historical accretions of Islamic culture and society.” This idea unwittingly perpetuates the heartland-periphery narrative, that Islam in the periphery is less Islamic than in the heartland (Ahmed 2016, 157-75).
(iii) Finbarr Barry Flood (2007) aptly notes that the emphasis on authenticity and originality in shaping the canon of Islamic Art reflects Western cultural and political assumptions regarding ‘non-Western’ art. The “authenticity” of these works is located in periods before the advent of contact with the West, as it is perceived to dilute Muslims' cultural and artistic expressions. The “authentic” is also demarcated by the geographical space and hierarchical construction of the Islamic heartland and peripheries. And since modernity and modernism belong to the West, the works of Islamic Art cannot be modern as they are set up as the antithesis of Western modernity.
(iv) In doing so I follow the accepted style of reference to these artists.
(v) While Pirous has a mixed Islamic background of a stricter orthodox father and an Acehnese mother who was into Sufism, Pirous’s understanding of Islam is relatively more orthodox in comparison to Haryadi’s. Pirous, however, is very critical of the more rigid scripturalist approach in contemporary Indonesian Islam. Interview with A.D. Pirous, February 2018. See also Kenneth George’s multiple publications derived from his collaborative research with and on Pirous (2002; 2010).
(vi) By “modernist Islam,” I refer to Martin van Bruinessen’s concept (2007) that describes it as those movements that expressly seek accommodation of Islam with modernity, with an emphasis on rationality and compatibility with modern science. This term is often interchangeable with reformist Islam or used in a much broader range of reformist movements in Islam that favor more literal readings of the Quran and Hadiths. It is often in conflict with “traditional” Islam, or Islam that had developed since at least the fifteenth century, circulated by traveling Sufis, traders, and performers. Many reformist Muslims regarded the religious practices of “traditional” and localized Islam as heterodox, and therefore, not Islamic.
(vii) While Haryadi is quite well-known and acknowledged by scholars and curators in the Indonesian art scene, his artistic and intellectual contributions in the development of Indonesian modern art are rarely discussed in depth. Important publications about his works include Haryadi’s exhibition catalog, curated by Mamannoor (1996) and Jerôme Samuel’s article on Haryadi Suadi (2008). A major solo exhibition of Haryadi Suadi was held in 2016, curated by A. Rikrik Kusmara and Rizki A. Zaelani. The exhibition was supposed to feature several new works, but Haryadi passed away when preparing for the exhibition. The show still went on as planned at the Indonesia National Gallery in Jakarta.
(viii) In my interviews in February 2018 with Haryadi’s colleagues and fellow artists, A.D. Pirous and T. Sutanto, both opined that Haryadi’s works could not be considered as “Islamic art.” A.D. Pirous cautioned me not to perceive Haryadi’s works as “Islamic.” T. Sutanto, one of Haryadi’s closest friends since their time as an art student, argued that Haryadi’s works are more focused on capturing the performative aspects of forms derived from or associated with Islamic aesthetics, such as the Buraq and calligraphy.
(ix) Many scholars have discussed the prominence of the Bandung art school and its aesthetics that was developed out of the school’s engagement with international modernism during its formational stage, ranging from Claire Holt’s discussion of art in Indonesia (1967), later built upon by Helena Spanjaard (2003) and Astri Wright (1994). See also Jim Supangkat’s book on Indonesian modern art (1997) and Susan Helen Ingham’s dissertation on modern and contemporary art infrastructure in Indonesia (2007). Of the numerous discussions about the Bandung School in articles by Indonesian and foreign scholars, Sudjoko (2000) and Trisno Sumardjo and Sudjoko’s correspondence following the controversial 1954 exhibition of Bandung artists in Jakarta are important.
(x) Haryadi Suadi and T. Sutanto were the first students in the Printmaking Studio established by Mochtar Apin in 1964.
(xi) Interview with T. Sutanto, February 2018.
(xii) Interview with T. Sutanto, February 2018, and with Radi Arwinda, March 2018. In the catalog of Haryadi’s exhibition, Mamannoor (1996) also mentioned Haryadi’s engagement with Munakata’s aesthetics and ideas of modernism.
(xiii) One can see a parallel in Munakata’s and Haryadi’s idea of modernism when comparing their artist’s statements in each of their exhibition catalogs. My access to Munakata’s catalog was through Haryadi’s family library.
(xiv) Interview with A.D. Pirous, February 2018. A.D. Pirous recalled that Sadali began experimenting with calligraphic painting in the 1960s. However, Sadali only exhibited his works after Pirous held a solo exhibition of his calligraphic works for the first time in 1972 at the Chase Manhattan Bank in Jakarta.. Pirous’s recollection is supported by Sadali’s painting, Lukisan (1966), at the National Gallery of Singapore that shows his early experimentation with calligraphic writing. See the exhibit catalog of Reframing Modernism: Painting from Southeast Asia, Europe, and Beyond (2016).
(xv) Several names, in addition to Sadali and Pirous emerged from Bandung, Yogyakarta, and Surabaya, including among others, Abay Subarna, Amri Yahya, Syaiful Adnan, Amang Rahman, Hatta Hambali, Batara Lubis. Umi Dahlan is perhaps one of the few female artists who were part of the canon.
(xvi) “Quranic aesthetic” refer to the ways in which Quranic verses “… enjoy special focus; scriptural clarity and immutability, and an emphasis on moral reflection and vision usually prevail over self-expressiveness” (2002, 27).
(xvii) The beginning of Islamization in the Indo-Malay Archipelago is highly debated, but scholars agree that Islam had substantially spread before 1500 C.E. See G.W. Drewes (1968) and A.H Johns (1975).
(xviii) The way that every element in Acehnese wedding decoration is filled with symbolism relating to marriage and Islam in general reflects the tendency of Sufism to use a permeating symbolism in all their thinking (Leigh 1993, 179).
(xix) The methods of copying and tracing these images are crucial in producing glass paintings and other Cirebonese artistic materials and rarely change. It is common, even required, for artists to copy and trace existing images derived from the works of their teacher. Haryadi, for example, copies numerous Cirebonese designs from his glass painting teacher, Rastika. For artists in Cirebon, it is a way of honoring the ancestors and acknowledging the presence of past creative and spiritual forces in recent works. Interview with glass painters, Dr. Opan Safari and Anda, March 2018.
(xx) All these designs are visual prayers, and each possesses symbolic meaning relating to practices of Islam in the Shattariya Order’s doctrinal teachings. These images also widely appear not only in glass paintings, but also on Cirebonese batiks, woodcarvings, and public architectural elements in Cirebon.
(xxi) At least one palace in Cirebon still has a copy of the manuscript. Unfortunately, I was unable to access the manuscript when I did my fieldwork in Cirebon. Dr. Opan Safari generously showed me manuscripts in his collection, providing me with information regarding the practice of glass painting in Cirebon.
(xxii) Suadi’s position as a “modern” artist in contrast to Rastika as a “traditional” artist is constructed and reinforced by social and cultural capitals derived from his art school training in one of the most important centers for modern art in Indonesia. He was also encircled by his colleagues that includes prominent artists and intellectuals, such as Sadali, Pirous, Srihadi Soedarsono, Sanento Yuliman, T. Sutanto, and many others. Suadi’s effort to break the mold of “traditional” glass painting might be the main reason for Mamannoor’s and other critics’ predilection to affix the adjective “modern” to Suadi (Mamannoor 1996) and “traditional” to Rastika and other Cirebonese glass painters. However, the modernist notion that imposed a hierarchical division between art and craft, originality, and copy also played a role in the reception of Suadi’s glass painting vis-à-vis Rastika’s.
(xxiii) Interview with Radi Arwinda, Haryadi’s son and an artist, Bandung, March 2018.
(xxiv) Interview with Dr. Opan Safari, Cirebon, March 2018.
(xxv) The Shattariya Sufi Order arrived in Java after it spread in Sumatra in the seventeenth century through Shaykh Abd al-Rauf bin Ali al-Jawi of Singkel (c. 1615-1693). The Shattariyya order spread in Java through the lines of Abd al-Muhyi of Pamijahan (b. 1650) in West Java and Abd al-Rauf bin Ali al-Jawi of Singkel (c. 1615-1693) as shown in the chain of transmission or silsila written in the nine Shattariya manuscripts from Java (Fathurahman 1999, 2006).
(xxvi) Interview with Dr. Opan Safari and conversations with glass painting and Cirebonese local experts at Museum Pangeran Cakrabuana, Cirebon, March 2018.
(xxvii) The Cirebonese Sultanate is one of the first Islamic Sultanates in Java that was established in the fifteenth century by one of the nine semi-mythical saints who spread Islam in Java, Syarif Hidayatullah (1448-1568). Known posthumously as Sunan Gunung Jati, he established his charisma and authority through his genealogy as the descendant of the Prophet Muhammad through the line of Ali and of the great Hindu-Buddhist king of Pajajaran in West Java, Prabu Siliwangi. In the eighteenth century, the Sultanate dissolved into four smaller principalities due to the Dutch intervention in Cirebon. The four sultanates, Kasepuhan, Kanoman, Kacirebonan, and Kaprabonan, still exist today.
(xxviii) Conversation with the palace guide during fieldwork at Kraton Kacirebonan, Cirebon, March 2018.
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