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PITA_MAHA

                                                  May  01, 2006
                                     Additions:   June 14, 2006


Walter Spies, might best be                                
described as a multi-media             Spies rhymes with "peas".      
artist, though he's sometimes          (He was nominally German.)     
pigeon-holed as a "German                                             
Expressionist painter".                                               
                                                                     
   One of the things he's
   known for though -- or that
   he should be known for --
   is his work on the Kecak.

              FIRE_DANCE

   At some point in these researches,
   it dawned on me that I was looking
   at a Scene...

   There was a group of artists and
   intellectuals (some westerners,
   some locals), who were working in
   Bali in the Ubud/Campuhan area        Pronunciation again:
   in the 1920s and 30s.                 Campuhan is like "Sham-Pwon".
                                         And Ubud is "Oooh-Boode".
     This was roughly the same
     time as the Lost Generation
     group was active in Paris.

     Is the Campuhan scene
     a branch of the Lost                  (And were the Existentialists
     Generation, or a scene                an entirely different
     of it's own?                          group, in spite of being
                                           located in Paris also?)
            How many others were
            there?   Berlin?  Moscow?


                              ^
                influence            isolation
                           o     o

                       <             >

                           o     o
                 identity            difference
                              v



Some names,
from this scene
(a melange of
core members
and visitors):                         From a few sources,
                                       but largely:

         performing arts:              "Walter Spies and Balinese
                                       Art" (1980) by Hans Rhodius
         Charlie Chaplin               and John Darling
         Noel Coward
         Ruth Draper                        OFF_OFF_CAMERA
         Vicki Baum
           wrote "A Tale of Bali"
                ("with W.S. help")
           also  "Grand Hotel"

         Margaret Mead
           (anthropologist)

         Claire Holt
         Jane Belo
         Colin McPhee
         Miguel and Rose Covarrubias

         Barbara Hutton
          (bought paintings)

         Dutch visitors:
         Stutterheim
            (headed East Indies
            Archeological Service)
         Jaap Kunst
         Dr. Goris
         Grader and Jacobs
           (administrators)

       Founding members of the
       "Pita Maha" group:                      (According to
                                               historical
         Walter Spies                          information at
         Rudolf Bonet                          the Hotel
         Tjokorda Gde Agung Sukawati           Tjampuhan.)

       which "fostered and promoted":

         I Gusti Nyoman Lempad
         Made Poleng
         Gusti Ketut Kobot
         Gusti Made Deblong




                                             (August 30, 2022)

                                   
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bali     
                                             
      "In the 1930s, anthropologists              
      Margaret Mead and Gregory Bateson,               Theodore Friend,
      artists Miguel Covarrubias and                   "Indonesian Destinies"
      Walter Spies, and musicologist Colin             (2003)
      McPhee all spent time here. Their           
      accounts of the island and its              
      peoples created a western image of          
      Bali as 'an enchanted land of               
      aesthetes at peace with themselves          
      and nature'. Western tourists began         
      to visit the island."                       
                                                 
      
      
      










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