Raden Saleh Sjarif Bestaman (1807 - April 23, 1880) is one of the best known painters from Indonesia.
Raden Saleh, that was born into the noble Javanese family in 1807, was a pioneer of modern Indonesian art.
Although he was the first Indonesian artist to depict in the West style, the fact that he expressed the identity and the inventiveness in his work (seditentang to the traditional approach that stressed spread-culture the form and the established style) showed the method for the artist's Indonesian candidate to express their idea of being personally freer.
Young Raden Saleh first was taught, in Bogor, by Belgium the artist . A. J. Payen. Payen acknowledged the youth talent, and persuaded the government to be colonial the Netherlands to despatch Raden Pious to the Netherlands to study art. He arrived in Europe in 1829 and began to be studying under Cornelius Kruseman and Andries Schelfhout.
It was from Kruseman that Raden Pious studied his skills as portraitist, and later was accepted in various European courts where he was assigned by most to do the photograph. From 1839, he passed five years in the Ernst I court, Grand Duke of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha, that became an important patron.
From Schelfhout, Raden Pious studied skills of a scenery artist. Raden Saleh visited several European cities, as well as Algiers, whereas in The Hague, a lion tamer allowed Raden Saleh studied his lion, and after that wild animal scenery that were brought by the extraordinary fame artist.
Many of his paintings were exhibited in the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam. On 50 years after his death, several compositions that were created in this point were burnt in fire fire in the Colonial Dutch pavilion in Paris, in 1931.
The artist returned to Indonesia in 1851, has lived in Europe for 20 years. Here, he worked as conservator for the colonial collection of government art. He continued depicted, produced the photograph of the Javanese aristocracy, and much scenery. He died in 1880, after coming back from second stay in Europe.
One of the creations Raden Saleh that was most painful was the 'Capture of Prince Diponegoro' that was regiven to Indonesia from the Dutch royal Palace in 1978. Now depended in President's Palace Museum in Jakarta.
In the painting, Raden Saleh deliberately made Dutch's front big, the reference to them pomposity and pride, but also to make them somewhat ridiculous put the comparison with the balanced sum Indonesians in the calculation.
It is believed that the layer of the Javanese man his face with his hands, the position behind Diponegoro, and the position of the Javanese man with his head welcomed the crowd under the ladder, by bowing was second self-photograph.
