Ida Bagus Made Togog
Encyclopedia
Ida Bagus Made Togog was born into a noble Brahman
Brahman
In Hinduism, Brahman is the one supreme, universal Spirit that is the origin and support of the phenomenal universe. Brahman is sometimes referred to as the Absolute or Godhead which is the Divine Ground of all being...

a clan in the center of Batuan
Batuan, Bali
Batuan is a village in Bali, Indonesia. It is noted for its artwork and style of painting which originated in the village in the 1930s and has since emerged into a major Balinese artistic style, known as a Batuan painting...

. Together with I Ngendon
I Nyoman Ngendon
I Nyoman Ngendon . I Nyoman Ngendon was among the first Batuan painters who embraced the modernization of Balinese art that took place around the beginning of 1930s...

, he was one of the foremost painters from Batuan. Unlike Ngendon, Togog was not particularly interested in Western ideas. He was comfortable with the Balinese way of life and adhered closely to the Balinese belief system. As a member of the high priest family, Togog was very familiar with Balinese lontar (religious literature) and Balinese myths and folklore. His works were primarily drawn from religion and local myths from an insider's view point and he narrates them through his drawings, just like in the Wayang tradition. The strength of his drawings was neither his draftsmanship nor composition, but his narration of complex religious beliefs and the united life in Bali as a balance between the macrocosm and microcosm, between the benevolent and good spirits.
According to Wim Bakker, it was the Dutch painter Rudolf Bonnet
Rudolf Bonnet
Johan Rudolf Bonnet was a Dutch artist who lived much of his life in the town of Ubud on Bali, Indonesia....

, who inspired him to translate images in Balinese lontars into drawings.
During 1936 to 1938, he was befriended by Gregory Bateson
Gregory Bateson
Gregory Bateson was an English anthropologist, social scientist, linguist, visual anthropologist, semiotician and cyberneticist whose work intersected that of many other fields. He had a natural ability to recognize order and pattern in the universe...

 and Margaret Mead
Margaret Mead
Margaret Mead was an American cultural anthropologist, who was frequently a featured writer and speaker in the mass media throughout the 1960s and 1970s....

 and produced 83 paintings for them. As Bateson and Mead went to Bali
Bali
Bali is an Indonesian island located in the westernmost end of the Lesser Sunda Islands, lying between Java to the west and Lombok to the east...

 to do research on Balinese character, they requested Togog to give an expression of his dreams. He produced a large number of drawings on dreams and his own interpretation in the context of Balinese beliefs as he understood it.

His works can be found in Tropenmuseum
Tropenmuseum
The Tropenmuseum is an anthropological museum located in Amsterdam, the Netherlands, and established in 1864.One of the largest museums in Amsterdam, the museum accommodates eight permanent exhibitions and an ongoing series of temporary exhibitions, including both modern and traditional visual...

 in Amsterdam
Amsterdam
Amsterdam is the largest city and the capital of the Netherlands. The current position of Amsterdam as capital city of the Kingdom of the Netherlands is governed by the constitution of August 24, 1815 and its successors. Amsterdam has a population of 783,364 within city limits, an urban population...

 and in the Rudolf Bonnet collection at the Ethnography Museum in Leiden, the Netherlands. In Bali, his can be viewed at the Puri Lukisan Museum and the Agung Rai Museum of Art
Agung Rai Museum of Art
The Agung Rai Museum of Art is a museum located in Ubud on Bali, Indonesia.- External links :* *...

 (ARMA) in Ubud
Ubud
Ubud is a town on the Indonesian island of Bali in Ubud District, located amongst rice paddies and steep ravines in the central foothills of the Gianyar regency...

, Bali
Bali
Bali is an Indonesian island located in the westernmost end of the Lesser Sunda Islands, lying between Java to the west and Lombok to the east...

.
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