Art on the way of fire - a Batur ... naive.

I recently took out a small canvas purchased in Bali, returning from the classic night excursion to the top of the Batur, to see the sunrise over the Agung and Rinjani.

An old man, a little hunched, sold it to me for a few Indonesian rupees.

Relevant to Naive Art, a non-academic movement and without proper definition, it is nevertheless characterized by traits common to these figurative representations: the subject, "rustic", illustrating landscapes and flowers, the non-respect, voluntary or not, of the rules of the Western perspective, the vivid colors without attenuation in the background, its details meticulous and awkward at the same time.

The description of the three craters of the Batur aligned on a fissure, the lake in the caldera, and its banks drawn by the volcano flows, is precise enough to identify with certainty the site.

The Batur, historically active, is located in the center of two concentric caldeiras, northwest of the volcano Agung.

The outer 10 x 13.5 km caldera was formed during the eruption of the Ubud Ignimbrite, approximately 29,300 years ago, and now contains a caldera lake on the southeast side facing the Gunung satellite cone. Abang, the highest point of the complex.

The inner caldera, 6.4 x 9.4 km wide, was formed about 20 to 150 years ago during the Gunungkawi Ignimbrite eruption. The south-east wall of the inner caldera is under Lake Batur; The Batur cone was built in the internal caldera at a height higher than the edge of the outer caldera.

The Batur stratovolcano produced vents over much of its inner caldera, but a NE-SW crack system supports the Batur I, II, and III craters along the summit ridge. Historical eruptions have been characterized by mild to moderate explosive activity, sometimes accompanied by lava emission. Basaltic lava flows from the summit and flank mouths reached the caldera soil and the shores of Lake Batur in a historic period.

The last eruption is dated March 1999 to June 2000 (GVP)

Sources:

- Global Volcanism Program - Batur

- Website of Pascal Blondé - link