Agreed Bram.
Agreed 125%.
And what makes it even more confusing is that the people who produce these carvings often, very, very often will produce a figure that is a mixture of characteristics, or that is clearly a particular character, but incorrectly represented in accordance with defined characteristics of the character.
Another thing that the carvers do is to use various features or characteristics from traditional characters, and weave these features and characteristics into something new. If this "something new" is a good seller, it becomes copied by other carvers, and before long you've got something that everybody, including the carvers themselves, think is traditional, but really is not.
Then there are the dictates of material:- the carver will have a form in his mind, and he will alter that form to fit the material he has to work with.
Many years ago a man who was an authority on South East Asian and primitive art, and whose opinion was respected across the world, commented to me that often the only person who knew what a particular figure was supposed to represent was the carver, or perhaps in some cases, the person who placed the order with the carver. This man's comments were not specific to Bali, but were addressed as a generality to S.E. Asian art, including the areas of primitive art. I am very inclined to agree with this opinion.
In the case of Bali, since probably about the 1920's, there has been so much input from outside sources to Balinese artistic pursuits, that it is sometimes a little bit difficult to identify those things that could be considered to be Bali asli, and those things that are a product of Balinese thought, technique, and skill that have absorbed influences from outside of Bali. This is not to say that such things are not truly Balinese:- if we look at the span of Balinese life and art, we find that throughout history the Balinese people have accepted and incorporated into their society, and into their culture, ideas from outside Bali. This is evidence of the vibrant and robust nature of Balinese art, that something can be taken from a different source, and incorporated into the local vocabulary----but it does sometimes make it a wee bit difficult to identify exactly what the artist was intent on portraying.
If we were to consider only those blossoms of Balinese art which bloomed prior to, say, 1920 , we could very probably determine with some degree of certainty what character a particular figure was intended to represent, however, since probably 99.9% of all Balinese carved figures that we encounter have been produced since 1920, we really would be a little self indulgent if we thought that our opinions could be considered to be anything other than merely opinions.
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