Isidore van Kinsbergen
Encyclopedia
Bruges
Bruges is the capital and largest city of the province of West Flanders in the Flemish Region of Belgium. It is located in the northwest of the country....
, 3 September 1821 – Batavia
Jakarta
Jakarta is the capital and largest city of Indonesia. Officially known as the Special Capital Territory of Jakarta, it is located on the northwest coast of Java, has an area of , and a population of 9,580,000. Jakarta is the country's economic, cultural and political centre...
, 10 September 1905) was a Dutch
Dutch people
The Dutch people are an ethnic group native to the Netherlands. They share a common culture and speak the Dutch language. Dutch people and their descendants are found in migrant communities worldwide, notably in Suriname, Chile, Brazil, Canada, Australia, South Africa, New Zealand, and the United...
-Flemish
Flemish people
The Flemings or Flemish are the Dutch-speaking inhabitants of Belgium, where they are mostly found in the northern region of Flanders. They are one of two principal cultural-linguistic groups in Belgium, the other being the French-speaking Walloons...
engraver who took the first archaeological and cultural photographs of Java during the Dutch East Indies
Dutch East Indies
The Dutch East Indies was a Dutch colony that became modern Indonesia following World War II. It was formed from the nationalised colonies of the Dutch East India Company, which came under the administration of the Netherlands government in 1800....
period in the nineteenth century. The photographs he produced during his visit to the colony in 1851 ranged in subject from antiquities and landscapes to portraits, court-photography, model studies and nudes. His monograph was published in black and white with a coloured quire of nearly 400 photographs. His photograph of Borobudur
Borobudur
Borobudur, or Barabudur, is a 9th-century Mahayana Buddhist monument near Magelang, Central Java, Indonesia. The monument comprises six square platforms topped by three circular platforms, and is decorated with 2,672 relief panels and 504 Buddha statues...
was the first picture of the monument that showed the results of the first restoration circa 1873.
Early life
Isidore van Kinsbergen was born in BrugesBruges
Bruges is the capital and largest city of the province of West Flanders in the Flemish Region of Belgium. It is located in the northwest of the country....
in 1821 (at that time, Bruges was part of the United Kingdom of the Netherlands
United Kingdom of the Netherlands
United Kingdom of the Netherlands is the unofficial name used to refer to Kingdom of the Netherlands during the period after it was first created from part of the First French Empire and before the new kingdom of Belgium split out in 1830...
). Having studied painting and singing in Paris, he joined a French opera group that travelled to Batavia
Jakarta
Jakarta is the capital and largest city of Indonesia. Officially known as the Special Capital Territory of Jakarta, it is located on the northwest coast of Java, has an area of , and a population of 9,580,000. Jakarta is the country's economic, cultural and political centre...
(the present day Jakarta) in 1851. After several performances the group left the Dutch East Indies
Dutch East Indies
The Dutch East Indies was a Dutch colony that became modern Indonesia following World War II. It was formed from the nationalised colonies of the Dutch East India Company, which came under the administration of the Netherlands government in 1800....
, but Van Kinsbergen decided to stay there. He became interested in the new medium of photography, particularly in using the albumen print
Albumen print
The albumen print, also called albumen silver print, was invented in 1850 by Louis Désiré Blanquart-Evrard, and was the first commercially exploitable method of producing a photographic print on a paper base from a negative...
technique. He opened the first albumen print processing shop in Batavia.
Commissions
Dutch East Indies
The Dutch East Indies was a Dutch colony that became modern Indonesia following World War II. It was formed from the nationalised colonies of the Dutch East India Company, which came under the administration of the Netherlands government in 1800....
Alexis Loudon invited Van Kinsbergen to join the government mission to Siam (present day Thailand) in February 1862 to cover the 1860 Treaty of Friendship, Trade and Navigation between the Netherlands and Siam. It was Van Kinsbergen's first government assignment and he used the occasion to capture a number of curiosity in the country.
During that period, the Batavia Society of Arts and Sciences, whose main interests were in archaeological research and conservation, became interested in the newly invented albumen print medium. The society felt that the world should know more about Javanese culture as expressed in the old inscriptions, statues, customs and temples. The Society arranged an archaeological tour around Java, headed by J.F.G. Brumund, a reverend of the Batavian Evangelic Community and a specialist in Javanese. The Society also commissioned Van Kinsbergen to accompany Brumund during his tour in order to illustrate Brumund's publication about Javanese culture and antiquities. The government granted permission for this tour, with the restriction that all wet-prints (cliches
Negative (photography)
In photography, a negative may refer to three different things, although they are all related.-A negative:Film for 35 mm cameras comes in long narrow strips of chemical-coated plastic or cellulose acetate. As each image is captured by the camera onto the film strip, the film strip advances so that...
) would be government property and that extra printing would only be allowed with permission from the government.
As part of his contract with the Batavian Society, Isidore van Kinsbergen had to take photographs of Borobudur
Borobudur
Borobudur, or Barabudur, is a 9th-century Mahayana Buddhist monument near Magelang, Central Java, Indonesia. The monument comprises six square platforms topped by three circular platforms, and is decorated with 2,672 relief panels and 504 Buddha statues...
, which had just been cleaned and restored. However, when he went to photograph the Panataran Hindu
Hindu
Hindu refers to an identity associated with the philosophical, religious and cultural systems that are indigenous to the Indian subcontinent. As used in the Constitution of India, the word "Hindu" is also attributed to all persons professing any Indian religion...
temple complex in East Java
East Java
East Java is a province of Indonesia. It is located on the eastern part of the island of Java and includes neighboring Madura and islands to its east and to its north East Java is a province of Indonesia. It is located on the eastern part of the island of Java and includes neighboring Madura and...
in 1867, he ran out of chemicals. In his enthusiasm for photographing the many reliefs of the temple complex, he used up so many glass slides that he could not go to Borobudur as he had intended to. The Society was nervous about Van Kinsbergen's delay, so they did not grant Van Kinsbergen's request to supply new slides.
However, Van Kinsbergen's photographs satisfied the Society and he became renowned as "the Society's Photographer". His work on repairing the system for managing water flow during his trip in the Dieng Plateau
Dieng Plateau
Dieng Plateu, is a marshy plateau that forms the floor of a caldera complex on the Dieng active volcano complex near Wonosobo, Central Java, Indonesia. Referred to as "Dieng" by Indonesians, it sits at 2,000m above sea level far from major population centres...
in order to photograph the Javanese Hindu temple there was avidly praised by the Society. The board then decided that Van Kinsbergen was no longer obliged to follow Brumund's directions, but should pursue his own vision. Brumund published his work in 1868, but without the full illustrations of Van Kinsbergen. Later in 1872, Van Kinsbergen published photographs of monuments in Java, but he was criticized for missing some important ruins, for instance, those of which are in the eastern of Kediri
Kediri, East Java
Kediri is an Indonesian city, located near the Brantas River in the province of East Java on the island of Java.Archaeological artefacts discovered in 2007 appeared to indicate that the region around Kediri may have been the location of the Kediri kingdom, a Hindu kingdom in the 11th century.The...
.
Although Brumund's publication included drawings of Borobudur, the Batavia Society still felt that it was incomplete. In April 1873, Isidore van Kinsbergen set off to the monument. Cleaning, digging and other technical difficulties delayed his start in taking pictures until August that year. The wet monsoon season
Monsoon
Monsoon is traditionally defined as a seasonal reversing wind accompanied by corresponding changes in precipitation, but is now used to describe seasonal changes in atmospheric circulation and precipitation associated with the asymmetric heating of land and sea...
further hampered Van Kinsbergen's work, resulting in a series of only 43 photographs taken between August to December. The Society was disappointed with the resulting quantity of photographs, although they were satisfied by the printing and artistic quality.
Photographic styles
Isidore van Kinsbergen was known as a perfectionist. During his work in Borobudur, he selected the statues and panels which had been preserved best to take pictures of. He preferred a non-frontal angle, which shows a better depth of the relief and the skills of the relief maker. To stress its timeless beauty, Van Kinsbergen blocked out the original background in the negative film instead of putting up a black curtain during photographing.There are some criticisms of Van Kinsbergen's photographs. He missed some details and sometimes his series was unbalanced. Trained as an artist, his works lacked archaeological descriptions, the main purpose of his contract. The printing quality, however, is beyond question and he had success showing the beauty of classical Javanese arts. His photographs were shown to the public both in the 1873 International Exhibition
Weltausstellung 1873 Wien
]The Weltausstellung 1873 Wien was the large World exposition was held in 1873 in the Austria–Hungarian capital of Vienna. Its motto was Kultur und Erziehung ....
in Vienna
Vienna
Vienna is the capital and largest city of the Republic of Austria and one of the nine states of Austria. Vienna is Austria's primary city, with a population of about 1.723 million , and is by far the largest city in Austria, as well as its cultural, economic, and political centre...
and the 1878 World Exhibition
Exposition Universelle (1878)
The third Paris World's Fair, called an Exposition Universelle in French, was held from 1 May through to 10 November 1878. It celebrated the recovery of France after the 1870 Franco-Prussian War.-Construction:...
in Paris. His works can be seen in several places, including in the National Museum in Amsterdam
Rijksmuseum
The Rijksmuseum Amsterdam or simply Rijksmuseum is a Dutch national museum in Amsterdam, located on the Museumplein. The museum is dedicated to arts, crafts, and history. It has a large collection of paintings from the Dutch Golden Age and a substantial collection of Asian art...
.