Don Antonio Blanco Museum
could be the most popular of the many art galleries paintings in Ubud, Gianyar,
Bali. In it, you can find a lot of art work of the maestro.
Antonio was born in the
Ermita district of Manila, Philippines. He initially lived and worked in
Florida and California, United States, until he became interested in exploring
the islands of the Pacific Ocean that had been a source of inspiration for
painters such as Paul Gauguin, José Miguel Covarrubias and others before him.
He planned to go to Tahiti, but fate brought him to Hawaii, Japan and Cambodia,
where he was a guest of honor of Prince Norodom Sihanouk.
From Cambodia he went to
Bali in 1952 and married a traditional Balinese dancer named Ni Ronji in 1953.
Bali gave Antonio important elements that he needed to develop his artistic
gifts: the beautiful scenery, the dreamlike atmosphere of the environment and
the pervasive art and great love.
Settled in Bali, Antonio
began to realize his dreams in life and work. He built a house and museum in
Ubud which contains many of his paintings.
Blanco lived and worked in
his magical hilltop home until his death in 1999, feverishly creating his
fantasy portraits of beautiful women. Surrounded by lush gardens, rice fields
and with a Banyan tree standing over his family's temple, Antonio Blanco
proceeded to create a new reality for himself. His artistic outpourings of this
isolated world became much sought after by eager art lovers, collectors and
promoters. Within a few years, Blanco became the most famous foreign artist to
make Bali his home. He was recognized in both Indonesia and abroad, receiving
numerous Blanco Awards and commanding huge prizes at international auctions.
By the end of his life,
Blanco had begun building his museum at his studio in Campuan. Dramatically, he
died just before its inauguration. His funeral was marked by a very important
Blanco Cremation in Ubud. It was Blanco's dream to turn his studio-mansion into
a museum. His son, Mario, fulfilled this dream by following his path to become
a painter. The Blanco Renaissance Museum is now open to the public, exposing
both the maestro's and Mario's art works..
The five-acre property
beside the Campuhan River contains an art museum, which has an outrageous
design that utterly dominates the grounds; a family house; a temple; a
restaurant; and a gift shop. If you're lucky, you might meet Mario Blanco (the
maestro's son) on the grounds, and he may tell you stories of his father's
adventures.
Visitors enter the grounds
through a circular gate. They walk through a menagerie of birds and assorted
animals before they reach the main grounds, a manicured lawn with a gigantic
fountain in the middle, facing a 50-foot green marble sculpture that serves as
a decorative gate into the museum. The sculpture is modeled after Blanco's own
signature, and the height (in meters) represents his birthday, September 15.
The stairs that climb up to
the museum entrance are flanked with naga - snake sculptures - and are painted
red at the middle, like a red carpet leading up to a VIP haunt. As you enter,
you'll notice golden Balinese dancers at each corner of the roof, and the
goddess Saraswati (the Hindu goddess of knowledge, a favorite muse of Blanco's)
topping off the whole building.
The museum building blends
European and Balinese design, much as Antonio Blanco melded European art and
Balinese sensibilities in his work. The interior covers three storeys, all
housing different works by Blanco from different periods. It was the Maestro's
own wish that his works never be exhibited to the public outside of his own
museum.
Blanco wasn't simply a
painter, but a consummate artist - he incorporated poetry into some of his
works, and some of the poetry isn't fit to be repeated in polite society!
Visual riddles and puns are worked into his art, and it takes a keen eye to
spot them all. The guide will be happy to explain what you see as you walk
around.
Looking around the museum, a
pattern emerges of the subjects that fascinated Blanco to the end of his life:
women, his own children, and the magic of Bali. The women are by far his most
popular subject: unabashedly sexual, some in languid reclining poses.
The artworks' frames seem to
be as intricate as the maestro's work - indeed, we are informed that the frames
undergo almost as detailed a creation process as the maestro's own art. Indeed,
they are masterpieces on their own - creations of gold leaf and delicate chisel
work.