Lot 001

ARIE SMIT
b. 1916 Indonesia / Netherlands
FLOWER IN THE GARDEN
Signed and dated lower left arie smit 2001
Acrylic on canvas
60.5 × 70 cm     

Published :

Vibrant arie smit, Hexart Publishing, Indonesia, 2002, color illustrated p. 4.23

Arie Smit is born in Zandaam, the Netherlands, in 1916. A painting student in the Academy of Arts in the Netherlands, Smit went on to continue his art education studying graphics design at the Academy of Art in Rotterdam.

Arie Smit was sent to Jakarta, then Batavia, in 1938 as a soldier in the Topographical Service. Imprisoned by the Japanese troops during World War II in 1942, Smit returned to Indonesia and obtained citizenship after he was released from 1945 to 1950. Visiting Bali for the first time in 1956, Smit, having experienced the hardships of war, took to the tranquil quality of the idyllic Bali immediately. There, he decided to stay and started promoting the Young Artists movement by helping to develop the movement’s colorful, naïve style of painting.

Arie Smit’s own painting style was undoubtedly influenced by his involvement in the Young Artist’s movement. Many times he emphasized that he is not at all concerned about replicating reality, but rather he aims to express his mood and the specific kind of energy that he was feeling as he paints. He will paint the blaze of the afternoon sun a bright red, the energy of laboring farmers in yellow, and a deep blue as dusk sets into his scene. Smit’s style and usage of colors are similar to that of the Fauves of early 20th century. The Fauvist style, characterized by its harsh usage of colors, is best described in a statement by Paul Gauguin: “How do you see these trees? They are yellow. So, put in yellow; this shadow, rather blue, paint it with pure ultramarine; these red leaves? Put in vermillion.”

With his Fauvist coloring, Smit paints with a technique he coined “broken colors”. He layer on colors without covering the previous layer completely, creating movement with his paint and an effect resembling Seurat’s pointillism. Smit’s subject matters are simplified into mainly outlines filled with dabs of colors. Never concerned with realistic painting, his paintings are rather flat and his perspective is differentiated by the position on the canvas where that he paints his subject. The size of his subjects, be it buildings or figures, does not decrease as the distance grows. This aspect of Arie Smit’s paintings is reminiscent of early medieval art.