Introduction:
In 1932, Belgium-born artist Adrien Jean Le Mayeur de Merprès arrived in the port town of Singaraja on the island of Bali. After spending years exploring Europe, Africa, Asia, and Polynesia, he travelled to Bali, looking for inspiration for his artistry. From Singaraja, he wandered the island and landed in the quaint fishing village of Sanur, where he discovered his muse: the 15-year-old Ni Pollok, a traditional Balinese Legong dancer who would later become his wife.[1] Using her as his model, he began to create artwork depicting Ni Pollok bare-chested while dancing at the beach or in the gardens near the house that he rented, having decided he wanted to stay in Bali for the rest of his life (See fig. 1). Before Le Mayeur, in 1927, the German photographer, painter, and composer Walter Spies arrived in Bali to capture the beauty of the island himself. Equipped with his camera, he photographed the cultural dances and motifs he experienced.[2] Noteworthy is his portrayal of the indigenous men of Bali in a homoerotic and feminized light. His photography, like that of many other photographers of the Dutch Colonial period, focused on capturing everyday moments in Balinese culture.[3] Spies was well known and highly sought out by anthropologists who wanted to document the culture and Bali’s indigenous people’s peculiarity.[4] Both artists attempt to capture the splendour, the dances, the songs, and Bali’s beauty in small portraits or snapshots.
Fig. 1. Photographer unknown, Le Mayeur painting an image of his muse and wife, Ni Pollok, 1949, photograph, from Wikimedia Commons. https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:COLLECTIE_TROPENMUSEUM_De_Belgische_schilder_Le_Mayeur_de_Merpr%C3%A8s_met_zijn_vrouw_en_model_Ni_Pollok_TMnr_10029733.jpg
A month before Le Mayeur died in 1958, Clifford Geertz arrived in Bali to research Balinese cultural traditions, which would result in his principal work, “Deep Play: Notes on the Balinese Cockfight.”[5] From “Deep Play,” Geertz formulated symbolic anthropology to analyze motifs in cultural practices to extrapolate meaning about culture and society. Clifford Geertz implemented “thick description,” a term first coined by philosopher Gilbert Ryle to situate and disseminate the cultural practice of the Balinese cockfight as a microcosm study of Balinese masculinity and of community social matrix. Geertz visualized all aspects of culture, whether that be oral histories, cultural practices, clothing, and language, as part of an ensemble of texts in a more extraordinary tapestry of culture and society.[6] Of the cockfight, Geertz extrapolates that it is fundamentally a human competition under the guise of cockfighting. Through cockfighting, it is surmounted that we can identify the masculinity of Balinese men and the relation it has with power and nobility, as well as the legal structure of communities as they are intertwined with the rules of cockfighting.[7] The challenge to using Geertzian theory is how to navigate cultural appropriation and how to discern meaning from a fragment of culture and add that to a more extensive dialogue about a culture. Cultural appropriation by definition is the act of taking another culture without respecting the peoples and society that it derives from.[8] In Geertzian theory, articles of culture are used as a way of discovering what is important, and why something is important, without the consultation or respect of indigenous peoples. Geertz makes the point that culture should be seen as a web and that small portions of “text” can illuminate and give us a way of understanding the web. However, Geertzian analysis takes the focus away from the people it is analyzing and can inappropriately extrapolate meaning to fill the web in, and exporting this information as a “truth” about a culture. It is difficult to accept Geertz’ article and how the cockfight to symbolizes the bodies of indigenous men and the culture of masculinity when the knowledge-making component of the article relies little on actual indigenous voices and viewpoints.
Geertz never came across Le Mayeur’s artistry. Still, Geertzian symbolic anthropology offers a flexible methodology with which to examine the potential cultural significance and impact of Le Mayeur and Spies’ art. Geertz would likely approach these two artists’ work and come to the conclusion of Balinese culture being focused around women and the role of femininity being prized above those of European understandings of societies, where masculinity developed as a dualism from femininity. From this understanding, Geertz would extrapolate this to discuss about how power and femininity are intertwined in Balinese society but can easily be supplanted by foreign powers, as symbolized by the power of these two male artists to capture and project this femininity for tourism and colonialism. From Le Mayeur’s paintings and Spies’ photography, we can appreciate the beauty of Balinese culture and the expression of gender and sexuality that they present to the viewer. Symbolic anthropology extracts meaning from sexuality and gender and adds to the greater colonial narrative of a society.[9] Le Mayeur’s art illustrates the associated pleasures for colonial tourists of the indigenous landscapes, picturized as a sexual and economic paradise. However, using the Geertzian approach, we can also highlight deficiencies in the symbolic anthropological approach, chiefly those of Eurocentric male-centered colonialism in the form of the “porno-tropics” motif. First coined by writer Anne McClintock, the “porno-tropics” describes the romanticization and sexualization in European colonial discourses regarding gender, race, sexuality, and colonial expansion into indigenous lands and territories. Frequented are illustrations and writings that display indigenous spaces as sexual and exotic places to entice emancipation.[10] However, the porno-tropics invectively creates a narrative that plays up sexuality to understand culture while offering biases that offer damaging generalizations of culture. The flowers shown in the artwork of Le Mayeur show only the long female pistil of flowers (see fig. 2). Le Mayeur never depicts the stamen or the male component. Le Mayeur’s art symbolically visualizes half the story. Spies’ artwork famously depicts indigenous men. The methodology that Clifford Geertz would disseminate gender roles and culture through artwork offers some insight into the parameters of symbolic anthropology and invites a closer look at the details in art. Geertzian theory posits that in art, culture can be found by the historian, but how much of the analysis is new knowledge of a culture and people that lies outside of the purview of colonialism and orientalism? Using Geertzian theory therefore also highlights its deficiencies as an analytical theory. Geertzian theory utilizes European understandings and vocabulary to disseminate cultures and traditions of indigenous cultures without proper consultation of indigenous peoples. It prescribes meaning without permission and thus is invasive and prescriptive in analysis, which makes it an illustration of male-centered colonialism by virtue of the artists being European cisgendered males writing about indigenous bodies. Like the flowers that adorn Le Mayeur’s paintings suggest, there is more to a flower than is apparent at first glance.
Fig. 2. Adrien-Jean Le Mayeur de Merprès, Picking Flowers,1952, painting, from Sothebys. https://www.sothebys.com/fr/auctions/ecatalogue/lot.1044.html/2016/modern-contemporary-asian-art-evening-sale-hk0628
Verdant Sexuality in the “Last Paradise”
Oh Bali
Oh, Bali, beautiful island
Your location is ideal
Your land is fertile
You are famous
-- Wayan P Windia, Stanza 1 of 3 of Oh Bali [11]
Written in 1938 by Balinese poet Wayan P Windia, Oh Bali grapples with the famous raw beauty of Bali, the poet’s home, but also paradoxically denotes this is a view that is only seen from the colonial lens. Windia’s people and family are unable to see this image of their home as they are poor and work hard as labourers under the Dutch.[12] The poem divulges into his thoughts and concerns with the island and the state of the Balinese people. The first verse of his poem illustrates the Bali that Le Mayeur knows. Le Mayeur’s goal was to capture his wife’s dreamlike, verdant beauty and the natural world around him through impressionist art.[13] He also wanted to capture blithe village life in an idyllic manner. Bali’s gardens and flowers are romanticized with women as they go about daily work of gathering food and flowers, gossiping, dancing, and eating (see fig. 3). This paronomastic relationship between flowers, women, and every day seems to flow in the fictitious wind of the scenery, along with the skirts of bare-chested women. Le Mayeur’s art was auctioned off in Singapore to great popularity among European male consumers. This motivated Le Mayeur to continue his art. Soon, his artistry consisted of more than just paintings of Ni Pollock -- he began to draw scenes of Balinese village life, through the gaze of female subjects.[14] Each frame abounded with flowers all over the bodies of women. This is similar to the way Geertz treats the corporeal male bodies in “Deep Play,” where the cocks of the cockfights are drawn as a direct parallel and as symbolic of the genitalia of Balinese men. The way men maintain and groom their cocks is equated to their own understandings of masculinity and power. In the same vein, the flowers of Le Mayeur’s art compares women to flowers in a comparison to their beauty, but also to an oriental analysis of femininity.
Fig. 3. Adrien-Jean Le Mayeur de Merprès, Preparing Offerings, circa 1950-1955, painting, from Christie’s Auctions. https://www.christies.com/lotfinder/Lot/adrien-jean-le-mayeur-de-merpres-5803258-details.aspx?sc_lang=zh
While the subject of his artistry were indigenous women, the symbolism of blossoming flowers situated in the middle-frame of much of his artwork, presenting women with their bare bosom, offers two cultural assumptions to symbolic anthropology (see fig. 2). First, the sexual availability of these women and the delicate feminization of the island and scenery offers to the viewer a counterpoint in which they come to associate a symbol with an aspect of Balinese culture.[15] Much like the cocks of Geertz’ writing being equated to the masculinity of society and Balinese men, one could examine how Le Mayeur paints a similar line between the flowers and the sexuality of the women of the island. Women are adorned with flowers because they are flowers in their society. Western men and colonial powers desire to pluck the beautiful and delicate women of Bali like the flowers in the imagery. These Balinese women dance in the wind and are natural and untamed. The long, beautiful stamen of the flowers emphasize the fertility of the women, and suggests that they are merely waiting for someone to pollinate them. Furthermore, the portrayal of only women in the scenery may suggest the apparent lack of men on the island as a whole, offering a fantasy space that this is a matriarchal society where women work bountiful, lush crops and fields.[16] Western men can come and capture the beauty and women of Bali because there are no Balinese men to compete with. This forms part of Geertz’ strategy regarding symbolic anthropology and “thick description.” Looking at the cock as cultural iconography, Geertz tries to find as many instances that this icon can be applied to the island of Bali in order to draw similarities and to justify analysis. Geertz looks at linguistic uses of the term cock in Bali, then looks at societal norms and functions, then finally compares the geography of the island to be in the shape of a “small, proud cock.”[17] Images of woman-only environments and photographs hint at hedonistic qualities expected by the Oriental, specifically, lesbianism, popularized by artists in French Colonial Algeria (see fig. 4).[18] The tantalizing fruit and flowers sitting visibly in the foreground indicate the fertility of the peoples and lots of land suitable for growing foodstuffs. In essence, Le Mayeur advertised and sold to European artists and travelers an island of fertile land and women.[19] The island was a flower in itself.
Bali’s cultural presentation as an inviting paradise filled with beautiful women brought more male colonial tourism and presence on the island as a whole. Europeans travelled to Bali to meet with Le Mayeur to see the beauty of the natural environment and the women of Bali, often drinking tea and chatting to Le Mayeur while Ni Pollock served them.[20] What Le Mayeur’s art brought to the European consumer was not just the sexualization and objectification of indigenous women, but also a portrayal of Balinese culture that contrasted with the European norms of colonial life. Photographs of Dutch frontier women in Indonesia often depicted them as orderly and inside the colonial buildings, caring for children (see fig. 5).[21] These colonial women contrast the inviting images of naked indigenous women and the free open spaces of nature that existed within the paintings of Le Mayeur, which is the “porno-tropics” motif.[22] To visit Bali was more than just an order of the colonial government. It could also be a fantastical escape from the realities of working in the frontiers.
Fig. 4. Adrien-Jean Le Mayeur de Merprès, Women Around the Lotus Pond, circa 1950-1951, painting, from Christie’s Auctions. https://www.christies.com/lotfinder/Lot/adrien-jean-le-mayeur-de-merpres-belgian-1880-1958-6000032-details.aspx
Fig. 5. “The De Vries Family, Batavia,” circa 1915, photograph, from Protschky, Susie, Seductive Landscapes: Gender, Race and European Representations of Nature in the Dutch East Indies during the Late Colonial Period. https://doi-org.ezproxy.library.ubc.ca/10.1111/j.1468-0424.2008.00530.x
Invasive Photography: Power dynamics in the “Porno-Tropics.”
Your peasants live simply
They eat and dress simply
But indeed they are not rich
As they lack power and knowledge.
-- Wayan P Windia, Stanza 2 of 3 of Oh Bali[23]
While Le Mayeur analyzes femininity and womanhood, Spies looks at the bodies of indigenous men and masculinity. In his travels, Spies provides a different take on everyday life in Bali from another vantage point. Spies offers a view on masculinity and the apparent lack thereof in his imagery and photos. Spies’ photography captures male figures’ androgyny in colonial Bali by capturing moments where the lines blur between gender and sexuality.[24] The most iconic of his photos is a snapshot of the famous Balinese dancer I Ketut Marya, also known as I Mario, dancing Kebyar Duduk in traditional costume (see fig. 6). I Ketut Marya in androgynous attire, and holding a fan as he dances, captures the Balinese cultural aspects and its people’s traditions. Still, the photo’s intent, to display Balinese culture “authentically,” is marred by personal biases and viewer interpretation. Spies’ photography raises the issue of how the viewer will interpret the art to contextualize it in Bali’s culture. More dangerously, the viewer brings their cultural understanding that may not properly align themselves with the indigenous culture being viewed and analyzed. This is harmful because suddenly, the “text” of culture that is being analyzed is being imprinted onto a greater tapestry of another culture, in this case, the culture of the colonial power. An impression of European culture and worldview cannot be on top of Balinese culture.[25] Since most people viewing the photo were anthropologists and tourists, they would likely conclude that in Bali, both men and women are coded as feminine, further supplemented by Adrien Jean Le Mayeur and other artists at the time depicting the island full of women.[26]
Fig. 6. Walter Spies, “I Ketut Marya dancing Kebyar Duduk,” 1936, photograph, from Asia Pacific Photography. http://www.asia-pacific-photography.com/towardindependence/spies/index.htm
The androgyny of the dance character brings forth another interpretive issue of sexuality in symbolic anthropology. Suppose the dance as textual evidence in Clifford’s theory, then Kebyar Duduk is the cockfight’s extension. The cockfight is an escape from ordinary, everyday life, but amplifies the culture of Balinese society. By default, it is surrounded by enlarged importance, as Geertz suggests and textualizes how masculinity operates between men in Balinese society. In Bali, femineity in men does not hold the same negative conceptions as it does in Europe. In Geertzian theory, the dance perhaps can symbolize how masculinity works within the dynamics of gender roles, that being subservient to the inherent femininity of the culture and its peoples. Men can adopt a fluid gender identity and perform feminine roles. As Balinese women play the role of the gatherer and the worker in Le Mayeur’s paintings, the part of men embraces femininity and womanhood. Moreover, there is an expectation of femininity in men in Bali’s dances’ traditions and artistry. Geertz would likely suggest that sexuality and gender performance of the Balinese people leans towards the feminine as it is feminine characters and symbols that are popular in cultural practices and that in many cases, the lines between men and women are blurred.
Pictures on the wall: Male-centered Colonialism and Orientalism
They do not work for you
But really, for the capitalist
Only one thing is certain
Creating his bloated stomach
-- Wayan P Windia, Stanza 3 of 3 of Oh Bali[27]
It is essential to note the critical caveats to using symbolic anthropology in historiography, specifically when working under the glaring shadow of orientalism and colonialism. I Ketut Marya’s dance may symbolize the stark contrast in gender fluidity of Balinese society in comparison to European culture. Still, even more so than that, it highlights a colonial perception of how these men operate in a community of women and reinforces how Balinese society norms on gender and power graft into a Eurocentric worldview.[28] Geertz asserts it is “--neither the sentiments of the artist, which remain his nor those of the audience, which remain theirs, can account for the agitation of one painting or the serenity of another.[29]” Nevertheless, it is a difficult argument to make in the example of Le Mayeur and Spies art, solely because the art of a painting and that of a photo is subjective. We are supposed to glean some subjective truth or some information from it.[30] The homology of woman and flower, masculinity with femininity, is not a coincidence. This is a marked difference from Geertz’s process in Deep Play, where he takes a cultural occurrence and symbol likely unnoticed and extrapolates meaning. Le Mayeur and Spies’ case have artificially chosen symbols for analysis and hint at prescribed substance. Geertz’s research mode offers a wide caveat in that cultural research cannot be extracted through a lens and extrapolated as a text given the parameters in art and culture. Inherent biases of gender and sexuality are coupled with the power to record and consent when collecting these artifacts.[31] Given that artifacts have specific markets and demographics in mind, it is crucial to consider the impositions this has to the angle and style that the artistry takes form.
Both artists borrow heavily from European depictions of gender and sexuality to make the imprinting of Balinese culture easier for the consumer, but this, in effect, is a disservice to the analysis of culture as a whole. The depiction of the bare-chested woman and feminine men portrays Bali’s indigenous culture as starkly feminine and missing in masculinity instills European understandings of gender and sexuality for the viewer without consultation of Balinese people.[32] Geertz makes no mention of consulting Balinese people to see if they concur with his findings in “Deep Play,” therefore making it difficult to accept his proposition in the article as truly doing justice to Balinese culture and people. This cultural appropriation is taken a step further in Spies’ photography. Whereas Le Mayeur’s art keeps the lower half of a woman’s body clothed and hidden -- in line with many Greco-Roman depictions of women and traditional femininity often found in European art, Spies offers an eye-level view of men and boys bathing at a pool in in full nudity in direct contrast (see fig. 7).[33] The photo’s choice stands out as homoerotic and voyeuristic to many viewers and commentators.[34] This invasive photography style and creating art were popularized in part by Gregor Krause’s 1926 photography album, “Bali: Volk, Land, Tanze, Feste, Tempel” which consisted of thirty pages of photographs of men, women, and children bathing. While Krause claimed that this was an “authentic view” into Balinese culture, there is evidence of many individuals twisting and turning away from the camera out of anger and contempt when photographed.[35] In one photograph from an anonymous individual, the women who were bathing appear visibly upset and angry with the photographer for violating their privacy (see fig. 8). This is an important consideration when we consider who had the power to collect artifacts of culture and the acquisition methods. Under this context, it can be said that Geertz’ analysis of the Balinese cockfight is a form of cultural appropriation. In the introduction to his article, Geertz writes about how him and his wife were seen as outsiders in the Balinese village they were staying in. It is not until they go and view a cockfight and flee the scene like the villagers do the people of the village see him and his wife as no longer “invaders.”[36] Geertz then writes that being part of the insider group allowed him to gather information and gain insight on Balinese culture much better, but throughout his article, there is little involvement of the Balinese people in his analysis. He relies very little on their testimony and only brings up Balinese voices when they emphasize his points briefly in the beginning stages of his “thick description.” Ultimately, Geertz’ “thick description” does not incorporate indigenous understandings of their own culture and takes the acceptance of himself into the Balinese community as the only legitimization needed in order to write and analyze a culture.
Fig. 7. Walter Spies, “Balinese Boys Bathing,” 1930s, photograph, from Protschky, Susie, Seductive Landscapes: Gender, Race and European Representations of Nature in the Dutch East Indies during the Late Colonial Period. https://doi-org.ezproxy.library.ubc.ca/10.1111/j.1468-0424.2008.00530.x
Fig. 8. Photographer unknown, “Women bathing at a river,” circa 1910, photograph, from Protschky, Susie, Seductive Landscapes: Gender, Race and European Representations of Nature in the Dutch East Indies during the Late Colonial Period. https://doi-org.ezproxy.library.ubc.ca/10.1111/j.1468-0424.2008.00530.x
Conclusions:
From the flowers of Le Mayeur’s art to the bodies portrayed in Spies’ photography, one of art’s main purpose is to display culture. Still, the historian and anthropologist collecting artifacts and recording culture collection must always be critically conscious of their intentions and portrayal of culture. A picture can tell a thousand words, but what message are those words conveying? While symbolic anthropology can offer a methodology for examining cultures and how traditions and cultures should be understood, it provides a glaring caveat akin to psychoanalysis. That is, to say “something of something” requires the conscious effort of the analyst to remove and to distance themselves from their own native culture as not to impose their own biases as much as possible to conceptualize culture and traditions. This, in itself, is difficult since biases are inherently present in the analysis. Therefore, the perceived characteristics of a culture and society must be firmly situated to understand that the “text” itself should not enrich the colonial narratives of culture. In Geertz’ original piece, he uses the example and iconography of the cockfight to explain many facets of Balinese society and traditions, but without consultation and respect of indigenous peoples, the validity and quality of the “text” being extracted by Geertz requires the reader and historian to be skeptical at best.
Intertextuality of culture posits that we must also be considerate of our own inherent biases. One of the glaring issues with Geertzian theory is its prescriptive nature and its desire to pin definitive meaning based on a singularity of “text.” The text must act within the understanding that it may provide or illuminate something not apparent in one’s native culture and perhaps nonexistent in the language of one’s own culture. The cockfighting does not need an anthropological explanation to make it fit into a Eurocentric cultural viewpoint. It is a standalone text in its own right.[37] The flowers and women’s work play into male-centered colonialism, as do the feminization of men through art, and art prescribes a view into a culture skewed by colonialism and orientalism.[38] To this end, Clifford Geertz’s analysis and comparisons to the way cocks are used in language and culture in the same way that Europeans and Western audiences would interpret it, leans to the side of using Balinese text to supplement a narrative situated in Europe for the reader and the historian’s sake. It is cultural appropriation. We cannot analyze culture and use it to explain all facets of a culture and people without considering the colonial aspects that will be encountered. To say “something of something,” one must acknowledge the article’s intertextuality to the culture in question, and not draw meaning from it for the fulfilment of a grand theory of history and culture.
Bibliography:
“Adrien-Jean Le Mayeur De Merprès.” Sothebys, 2020. https://www.sothebys.com/en/artists/adrien-jean-le-mayeur-de-merpres.
Alcano, Matteo Carlo. "SLAVES OF OUR OWN MAKING: The Fabrication of Masculine Identities between Java and Bali." Indonesia and the Malay World 39, no. 115 (2011): 373-
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Bate, David. “The Oriental Signifier.” Essay. In Photography and Surrealism: Sexuality, Colonialism and Social Dissent, 112–44. London: Tauris, 2011. https://doi-org.ezproxy.library.ubc.ca/10.4324/9781003103745.
“Dancers by Adrien-Jean Le Mayeur De Merprès.” Sothebys, 2020. https://www.sothebys.com/en/auctions/ecatalogue/2015/modern-contemporary-asian-art-evening-sale-hk0562/lot.1022.html?locale=en.
Green, Geffrey Corbett. Walter Spies, Tourist Art and Balinese Art in Inter-War Colonial Bali. London: British thesis service, 2002. https://ezproxy.library.ubc.ca/login?url=https://www-proquest-com.ezproxy.library.ubc.ca/dissertations-theses/walter-spies-tourist-art-balinese-inter-war/docview/1961615080/se-2?accountid=14656.
Hendriks, Thomas. "Race and Desire in the Porno-Tropics: Ethnographic Perspectives from the Post-Colony." Sexualities 17, no. 1-2 (2014): 213-229.
Juvan, Marko. History and Poetics of Intertextuality. West Lafayette, IN: Purdue University, 2008.
Lenzi, Iola, and Marilyn Seow. Museums of Southeast Asia. Singapore: Editions Didier Millet, 2005.
McClintock, Anne. Imperial Leather Race, Gender and Sexuality in the Colonial Contest. New York, NY: Routledge, 2015. https://www.taylorfrancis.com/books/imperial-leather-anne-mcclintock/10.4324/9780203699546.
Nurse, Andrew. “‘In Defense of ... ": Historical Thinking and Cultural Appropriation.” Active History, June 19, 2017. https://activehistory.ca/2017/06/in-defense-of-historical-thinking-and-cultural-appropriation/.
Protschky, Susie. Images of the Tropics: Environment and Visual Culture in Colonial Indonesia. Leiden: KITLV Press, 2011.
———. "Seductive Landscapes: Gender, Race and European Representations of Nature in the Dutch East Indies during the Late Colonial Period." Gender & History 20, no. 2 (2008): 372-398.
Putra, I. Nyoman Darma. A Literary Mirror: Balinese Reflections on Modernity and Identity in the Twentieth Century. Leiden: KITLV Press, 2011.
Sigal, Peter Herman, Zeb Tortorici, and Neil L. Whitehead. Ethnopornography: Sexuality, Colonialism, and Archival Knowledge. Durham: Duke University Press, 2020.
[1] “Adrien-Jean Le Mayeur De Merprès,” Sothebys.com, accessed December 26, 2020, https://www.sothebys.com/en/artists/adrien-jean-le-mayeur-de-merpres. [2] Geffrey Corbett. Green, Walter Spies, Tourist Art and Balinese Art in Inter-War Colonial Bali (London: British thesis service, 2002), https://ezproxy.library.ubc.ca/login?url=https://www-proquest-com.ezproxy.library.ubc.ca/dissertations-theses/walter-spies-tourist-art-balinese-inter-war/docview/1961615080/se-2?accountid=14656, 57. [3] Ibid, 54. [4] Ibid, 56. [5] Le Mayeur died in May 1958 after battling ear cancer and seeking treatment in Belgium. Ni Pollok was by his side when he died. She returned to their home in Bali and made their home and his art the Le Mayeur Museum which stands to this day. Source: Lenzi, Iola, and Marilyn Seow. Museums of Southeast Asia. Singapore: Editions Didier Millet, 2005. 56. [6] Clifford Geertz, "Deep Play: Notes on the Balinese Cockfight." Daedalus (Cambridge, Mass.) 134, no. 4 (2005): 56-86. 86. [7] Ibid., 61. [8] Andrew Nurse, “‘In Defense of ... ": Historical Thinking and Cultural Appropriation,” Active History, June 19, 2017, https://activehistory.ca/2017/06/in-defense-of-historical-thinking-and-cultural-appropriation/. [9] Ibid, 79. [10] Anne McClintock, Imperial Leather Race, Gender and Sexuality in the Colonial Contest (New York, NY: Routledge, 2015), https://www.taylorfrancis.com/books/imperial-leather-anne-mcclintock/10.4324/9780203699546, 22. [11] I Nyoman Darma. Putra, " CHAPTER III: From Balinese to Indonesian; Poetry from the colonial and national revolution periods". In A Literary Mirror, (Leiden, The Netherlands: Brill, 2011) doi: https://doi.org/10.1163/9789004253636_004. 84. [12] Ibid. [13] “Adrien-Jean Le Mayeur De Merprès,” Sothebys, 2020, https://www.sothebys.com/en/artists/adrien-jean-le-mayeur-de-merpres. [14] Ibid. [15] Susie. Protschky, "Seductive Landscapes: Gender, Race and European Representations of Nature in the Dutch East Indies during the Late Colonial Period." Gender & History 20, no. 2 (2008): 384. [16] Ibid, 385. [17] Clifford. Geertz, "Deep Play,” 60. [18] Ibid, 380. [19] Ibid, 386. [20] “Dancers by Adrien-Jean Le Mayeur De Merprès,” Sothebys, 2020, https://www.sothebys.com/en/auctions/ecatalogue/2015/modern-contemporary-asian-art-evening-sale-hk0562/lot.1022.html?locale=en. [21] Susie. Protschky, "Seductive Landscapes,” 376. [22] Ibid, 372. [23] I Nyoman Darma. Putra, “From Balinese to Indonesian.” 84. [24] Geffrey Corbett. Green, Walter Spies, 58. [25] Susie Protschky, "Seductive Landscapes,” 373. [26] Ibid, 385. [27] I Nyoman Darma. Putra, “From Balinese to Indonesian.” 84. [28] Susie. Protschky, Brill Online Books, and Inc ebrary. Images of the Tropics: Environment and Visual Culture in Colonial Indonesia. Vol. 270. Leiden: KITLV Press, 2011. 23. [29] Clifford. Geertz, "Deep Play,” 73. [30] David. Bates, Taylor & Francis eBooks A-Z, and Inc ebrary. Photography and Surrealism: Sexuality, Colonialism and Social Dissent. London; New York;: I.B. Tauris, 2003. 122. [31] Peter Herman Sigal, Zeb Tortorici, and Neil L. Whitehead, Ethnopornography: Sexuality, Colonialism, and Archival Knowledge (Durham: Duke University Press, 2020). 122. [32] Masculinity and femininity operate under socio-cultural conditions that are supported by culture as much as they need culture to create such dichotomies. The usage of such terms when talking about indigenous cultures and identities imprints the Christian/Eurocentric understanding of these terms. Source: Alcano, Matteo Carlo. "SLAVES OF OUR OWN MAKING: The Fabrication of Masculine Identities between Java and Bali." Indonesia and the Malay World 39, no. 115 (2011): 373-389. 374. [33] Susie. Protschky, "Seductive Landscapes,” 378. [34] Ibid, 379. [35] Ibid. [36] Clifford. Geertz, "Deep Play,” 59. [37] Marko. Juvan, History and Poetics of Intertextuality (West Lafayette, IN: Purdue University, 2008), 2. [38] Thomas. Hendriks, "Race and Desire in the Porno-Tropics: Ethnographic Perspectives from the Post-Colony." Sexualities 17, no. 1-2 (2014): 213-229. 216.