Analysis of paintings by Indonesian artist Djoko Pekik

Kurniawan Iwan Jaconiah

This paper is devoted to the knowledge and history of social realism painting in Indonesia, which developed in the second half of the 20th century. Based on a picture by Djoko Pekik entitled “Sadumuk Bathuk Senyari Bumi” (1966), which describes the social community who were arrested and banished to Island of Buru in Maluku. Many artists, poets, and writers have been detained and imprisoned because of different ideologies after tragedy in 1965. In this paper, the authors used quantitative research. According to Hollis (1994), quantitative research begins by defining differences in terms of “standard” variables that apply to all people, even though different people display different levels or amounts of variables. The object picture “Sadumuk Bathuk Senyari Bumi” at first glance reminds us of a painting titled “Scream” (1893) by Norwegian artist Edvard Munch. The conclusion of this paper indicated that Djoko Pekik's painting shows the social trauma of the past.

Keywords:social realism, culture, fine arts, Indonesia, post positivism.