Pasemah Visual Arts: Diversity of Shapes and Postures of Statues

Abstract

Nusantara (Archipelago) is Indonesia's a cluster of islands. In one of the islands, Sumatra, there is a range of mounts stretching from north to south, called Bukit Barisan (mountains range). Moreover, in the Bukit Barisan there is a region named Pasemah. Geographically, the topography of the region consists of mountains, ripples, and plateaus. It has long been called Pasemah Plateau, a considerably wide area encompassing three provinces: Bengkulu, South Sumatra, and Lampung. There are lots of archeological monuments as ancient remains in forms the artifacts of megalithic tradition spreading widely in the mountains. Pasemah statues are made of frozen rocks monolithic-andesitic medium. The megalithic artifacts discovered are of varying types. Based on a field study conducted, most of the megalithic remains in Pasemah either fall into a category of fine arts. The ancient artifacts have been discovered since the era of East Indie up to now, but they have been seen more from an archeological viewpoint. Thus far there is no specialized and deep study of the artifacts like one that the writer conducted in the present research by using a visual artsstudy. By drawing on archeological library data, the present research would carry out a field study, in order to obtain primary data that is suitable with a study of fine arts, so that anything related to the existence of the statues which are the ancient products of fine arts, particularly statues' shapes and postures, could be discovered.