Abdullah Suriosubroto

Abdullah Suriosubroto (also Surjosubroto, 1878–c. 1941), also known as Abdullah the Elder, was an Indonesian landscape painter. The adopted son of Wahidin Soedirohoesodo, Abdullah was trained in medicine but took to art during his studies in the Netherlands. Upon returning to the Dutch East Indies (now Indonesia), he settled near Bandung and gained a reputation with the colony's Dutch population. His works have been identified as part of the Mooi Indië genre and generally dismissed in the history of Indonesian painting. Abdullah was the father of Basuki, Trijoto, and Sudjono, all of whom entered the arts.

Biography

Abdullah was born in 1878 in Semarang^[1] or Surakarta^[2] on the island of Java in the Dutch East Indies (now Indonesia).^[1] He was adopted by the medical doctor Wahidin Soedirohoesodo,^[3] a nationalist who had co-founded Boedi Oetomo and was later given the title National Hero of Indonesia.^[4] In his youth, Abdullah attended medical school in Batavia (now Jakarta). To continue his studies, Abdullah was sent to the Netherlands.^[3]

However, rather than pursue a career in medicine,^[3] he decided to attend the Royal Academy of Art in The Hague,^[5] where he learned the tenets and techniques of Western painting. Upon returning to the Indies, Abdullah settled near Bandung, where he developed a reputation as a landscape painter.^[3] He later travelled to Surakarta and Yogyakarta, areas he deemed to have extraordinary natural beauty. His works were popular among the Dutch populace in the colony.^[3] He married Raden Ayu Ngadisah, with whom he had five children.^[6]

Abdullah took several students. These included painters from outside his family, such as Wahdi Sumanta,^[7] as well as his son Basuki.^[3] Abdullah's daughter Trijoto became a sculptor, while his son Sudjono was also a painter.^[8] Abdullah died in Yogyakarta in 1941^[1] or 1942.^[2]

Art

Abdullah was heavily influenced by academic art as taught in the Netherlands.^[2] He was predominantly a landscape painter, and surviving works including the areas around Priangan and Mount Merapi.^[1] The Indonesian art scholar Mikke Susanto describes Abdullah's landscapes as carefully composed, with the horizon near the centre of the canvas and a clear division between elements. Human figures are uncommon in Abdullah's works, but the impact of humanity—such as rice fields and bamboo huts—can be seen.^[2]

Writing in the newspaper Kompas, Verelladevanka Adryamarthanino and Widya Lestari Ningsih describe Abdullah as the first Indonesian painter of the twentieth century.^[1] Although the Javanese painter Raden Saleh had taken up painting and received formal training in the 19th century, no indigenous artists had followed in his footsteps. As such, Abdullah and his contemporaries Pirngadi and Wakidi were the first Indonesians to take up western art since Saleh.^[9] Of these, only Abdullah received academy training; Pirngadi and Wakidi apprenticed under European artists in the Indies.^[5]

Abdullah's works have been classified as part of the Mooi Indië genre,^[1] a style that drew from Romanticism to depict an idealized Indies.^[10] The style was heavily criticized by the painter S. Sudjojono in the 1930s, as he considered it formulaic and commercial.^[11] Since then, it has been treated dismissively in the history of Indonesian painting,^[12] and understood as a colonial art genre.^[13] Nonetheless, Abdullah's style continued to be used by his students Wahdi Sumanta^[7] and Basuki Abdullah.^[2] Works by Abdullah were held by President Sukarno.^[14]