WOJ Nieuwenkamp (1874-1950) is known as the first European artist to arrive in Bali in 1904. The story of modern art in Bali is often written from the point of European artists arriving upon Bali. In Nieuwenkamp’ s case, Bali is brought home with him to Europe. His publication, Bali en Lombok (1906-1910) played a key role in inscribing Bali in the European imagination. In its introduction, he also called out to artists to visit the then-Dutch East Indies (present-day Indonesia). Numerous artists from Europe heeded this call. During his lifetime, Nieuwenkamp’ s role as a Balinese expert was well-known. He made meticulous, and annotated studies of material culture, landscape and environment in Bali, and elsewhere in the Dutch East Indies (today, Indonesia). Painted during Nieuwenkamp’ s second trip to Bali, En plein air drawing of Sanur beach during the landing operation, 27 September 1906 (recto) and River crossing of Toekad Badung near dessa Pametjoetan, 1 October 1906 (verso) depicts events surrounding the Dutch intervention in Bali in 1906 that destroyed the southern Balinese kingdoms of Badung and Tabanan and weakened the kingdom of Klungkung. This colonial suppression also led to the puputan (mass ritual suicide) of the royal family, priests and palace officials in Denpasar. The massacre is remembered as the “Badung Puputan” and is regarded as a significant moment of resistance against colonialism. Subsequently, the Dutch soldiers stripped the corpses of the valuables and sacked the ruins of the burned palace. The palace of Denpasar was razed to the ground. Nieuwenkamp took an ethical position by documenting and publicly condemning such acts of colonial aggression in his letters to friends and colleagues in The Netherlands.
