Kamasan lies four km south of Klungkung. From Klungkung's main intersection, take a 'bemo' down the hilly road in the direction of Klotok and ask to be dropped off at Kamasan. You know you've arrived when people start to invite you into the compound to buy directly from the artist.

Descendants of the Hindu-Javanese Majapahit court artisans still work in the villages surrounding Klungkung, practicing the same professions as their ancestors of 25 generations ago.

Originally a village of gold and silversmiths who produced the crowns, body ornaments, and jewelry for the raja and his family, Kamasan later became known as a center for painters. Their art was devotional work (ngayah) for god or a leige lord, sent all over Bali to decorate 'puri'.

When the Dutch arrived at the beginning of the century, Kamasan artists lost their royal patronage and the art of 'wayang'-style painting nearly died. Kamasan underwent a resurgence when the Dutch commissioned the restoration of the Kerta Gosa paintings in the 1920s and 1930s. In the 1960s tourists and art and souvenir shops became an important source of revenue.

Painting

The traditional 'wayang'-style paintings produced here were the only form of painting executed on Bali from the 14th century until the early 1920s, and it's the oldest school of painting still practiced here. The 140-plus painters in the 'banjar' around Kamasan belong to a specialized guild working as a collective enterprise in home workshops and studios.

Many of the best-known painters trace their lineage to I Gede Modara, a classical artist of the 18th century who enjoyed the patronage of the Dewa Agung.

As in the Kerta Gosa frescoes, the highly conservative, formalized Kamasan style imitates the two-dimensional shadow puppets, with faces drawn in three-quarters profile. The heroes and demons depicted are taken from the Ramayana, Suthasoma, Pan Brayut, and other Javanese and Bali-Hindu mythologies and literary classics.

These characters are not really individuals but distinct, iconographic types. The village was once a lively center court for 'dalang', dancers, and musicians, all serving as inspiration for local painters.

It used to be paintings that depicted themes or characters that did not correspond to the accepted, cherished age-old values of the community risked severe criticism, but Kamasan's new patrons want painters to produce work with lighter themes.

Kamasan painters also specialize in pictorial Balinese calendars. Kamasan paintings are actually colored drawings. Traditionally, rocks, leaves, soot, crushed limestone, bone, and other vegetable and mineral dyes produced yellow, blue, red, green, orange, caramel, dark ochre, and dark brown colors. Now poster paints are beginning to replace hand-pounded natural dyes.

Cotton cloth is stretched, a layer of white rice flour starch applied, scenarios sketched from memory with charcoal, outlines drawn in with China ink, and the pigments filled in with a homemade, very fine bamboo paintbrush. Figures are usually colored orange. In the best pieces, look for figure set off by fluid and distinct black outlines.

Colors are dabbed on the canvases before the black outlines, which are usually drawn by the master artist when finishing the piece. Colors should remain clear and separate without being muddied by overlapping. It takes about a month to finish a one-half-square-meter painting, including preparing the canvas and paints.

Because Kamasan lies outside the usual tourist routes, and because of the system of guide commissions that controls tourist marketing in Bali, these artists are unable to sell many paintings at a reasonable profit.

The best of the Kamasan paintings are seriously undervalued and masterpieces can be purchased practically for the price of day labor and materials. The cheapest place to buy paintings is Banjar Sangging. The cloth paintings aren't usually framed. Be generous, these fine traditional craftsmen are an endangered species.

Painters

The most famous and sought-after painter is I Nyoman Mandra (b. 1946), whose works are a favorite of international collectors and hang in European museums and galleries. Mandra is a delightful person and speaks so-so English. His students do amazing work as well, which you can observe in a government-sponsored school. Here, village children are trained to carry on this 500-year-old-tradition by imitating the master.

Another well-known painter is Mangku Mure in Banjar Siku (the closest 'banjar' to Klungkung). With Pan Semaris, Pak Mure directed the restoration of the Kerta Gosa paintings in 1960. Ketut Rabeg in Banjar Sangging is also considered a gifted artist.

Nyoman Serengkog, a rare female practitioner in what used to be a male-dominated profession, is the wife of Pan Semaris and works in the adjoining 'banjar'. Ni Made Suciarmi is another competent woman artist working in this style, see her work displayed in Ubud's Seniwati Women's Art Gallery.