Images of Power: Balinese Paintings Made for Gregory Bateson and Margaret Mead

I am Balinese and enjoyed this book. It is a catalogue of Margaret Mead's and her husband Gregory Bateson's collection of paintings. They were in Bali off and on throughout the Thirties.Batuan is a village in Central Bali, which is not far from my own village of Ubud. They are both artists' villages, but the painting styles are very different. Ubud has attracted a lot of foreigners, who have influenced the local artists. This was not the case with the painters in Batuan, who developed their own style.Professor Hildred Geertz is a renowned anthropologist, who writes well, and explains the stories behind these paintings, which would otherwise be rather hard to follow. I think that some of the points she mentions are original and interesting.Most of the painters are profiled with a short biography. Margaret Mead and Gregory Bates interviewed the painters and made notes. Some are charming and very personal, like the fact that Ida Bagus Made had been to a movie once.Recommended.

This is a definitive and well written book on Balinese paintings from the village of Batuan. This book serves as the exhibition catalog for the Batuan Painting exhibition from the collection of Bateson and Mead. Prof. Geertz illusively decribed the relationship between the Balinese culture, tradition and myth, the western influence and the development of Balinese Paintings. Highly recommended for the patrons and the students of Balinese Painting