|
The carving of Wayang Golek Purwa Puppets
The carvers are the best authorities on Puppets as they rely on memory to carve them. No written sources existing are enough guidance for carving of the Puppets. Recently, several books have appeared on types of Puppets and it remains to be seen what influence if any, they will have on the carving style of the Puppets. The carvers? main source for orders for Puppets comes from the Dalang themselves. The popularity of Wayang Golek Puppets among tourists has created some deviations such as the varnishing of Puppets to give them an "antique" quality. Cheaper imitations of this process involve the use of shoe polish. Also common is the painting of Puppets in black and silver, or other colors, to create for example matching Rama/Sinta sets. It is doubtful whether this will have an adverse effect on established styles at this time, though the evolution of Puppets continues. The Puppets described in this essay are types actually used in performance.
Wayang Golek Purwa Puppets are about fifteen to thirty inches high. Each Puppet represents a specific character from the Ramayana and Mahabharata cycles of stories. (All Puppets introduced later on this essay, will come from the Mahabharata cycle, except for Radon Indrajit and Raden Hanoman who come from the Ramayana cycle.) Most of the Puppets are from the Mahabharata Cycle. According to Peter Buurman 90+ Puppets, versus about 15 for the Ramayana Cycle. The relation in numbers can serve as a guideline also when we compare it to the number of Lakon or stories. Kathy Foley identifies 30 Ramayana Lakon and 181 Mahabharata Lakon. As noted earlier however, we must remember that some Puppets particularly female characters are used interchangeably. The main Parts of a Wayang Golek Puppet are the head, the headdress, the torso, the arms and hands and the dress and ornamentation. Basically there are five main face types, and at least fourteen individual types. These five main types are: nobles, intermediate good and bad types, more aggressive and less refined types, Aggressive/Giant types and animal/special types. Later in this introduction we will look at eleven different types of Puppets in more detail.
Carving and assembly of the Wayang Golek Puppets is often a family affair, with different members of the carvers? family taking on different tasks. Usually, light softwoods are used for carving. These are usually cured and dried for one year or more before carving. Softwoods are easier to carve and lighter for the Dalang hold and therefore easier to manipulate in performances. First the head is carved. This process takes place in stages, initially roughly and then progressively using finer instruments, knives and sandpaper more finely and in more detail. The head is the most important part of the Puppet and the facial expression, the position of the head and the detail decide the value of the Puppet both from a performance and value perspective for the collector. Although the carving is most important, the painting of the head has to match the carving in quality. The head is first primed, usually in yellow. Next the color of the face is painted followed by the other colors in turn, with minute detail and/or gold areas painted last. While the carving of the head has taken place, the bodies and arms have been prepared to match the head. The dressing of the Puppets comes next. Most Puppets are dressed in a prescribed manner, though there seems to be great range in dressing as well. This is particularly true when viewing the Batik patterns. Some figures especially the clowns and ogres may be dressed in modern dress. Puppets dressed in gortex or leather jackets exist. An ogre (Buta Terong) in an antique set has Indonesian Domino Cards, western playing cards and the words "au gogo" painted on its head. The vast majority of the Puppets are dressed in more or less traditional styles. Many Puppets have a sling on the back of their dress, wear a kain, and have the selendang or shawl, which is essential for performing Puppets of their type to perform dances and other movements. Also, most Puppets are decorated with sequins and many of them also wear pendants.
To my knowledge there is no book available which concerns itself solely with the carving and dressing of Wayang Golek Puppets and this is a subject where a good guidebook would be welcome. When considering face color, generally speaking, refined characters have white faces, slightly more extroverted types may have pink or less commonly orange faces, coarser types have blue faces and rough to very rough characters have red faces.
|
