The Forbidden Letter – On Malaysian Art

Mohamed Hoessein Enas, “Admonition”, 1959

There are some images that have the power to tell an era, a people, a historical moment. 

It's easy to think of the photograph taken by Elliott Erwitt in North Carolina in 1950, in which the profound drama of racial segregation was enclosed in a frame. 

There were hundreds of images that recounted that historical period, but that simple photograph taken in a public bathroom remains an unsurpassed icon.

Elliott Erwitt, North Carolina, 1950

The same goes for painting and any art form that works with the image.  For this reason, I like to look not only in photography books for something that can tell me about a people or its culture.  Especially for the countries I love the most. 

I have written about Malaysia in abundance on these pages and in my book; however, there are always areas in the shade, unspoken. I like to talk about it again.

This time it is about a painting. 

I bought a little book on traditional Malaysian art. Together with photography, the passion for vintage photos and painting go hand in hand. Anything that can educate my eyes causes me pleasure.

It is among those pages that I saw this painting, entitled “Admonition”, painted in 1959. Curious that the artist was not even Malaysian by birth but he later became one.

Mohamed Hoessein Enas is considered to be among the earliest generations of Malaysian artists. Born in 1924 in Bogor in Java, he fled the Dutch occupation in 1947, first to Singapore where he worked as a rickshaw-driver and then to Penang, and finally to Selangor.

He was the founder of the Majlis Kesenian Melayu which eventually became the Angkatan Pelukis Semenanjung which was dedicated to producing artworks of the Malay tradition. He was also a member of the Board of Trustees and the former head of Design and Staging Services of the national RTM (Radio dan Televisyen Malaysia). He was then appointed as the Royal Portrait Painter by His Royal Highness the Sultan of Selangor in 1990, in 1991 he was awarded the title “Dato”. He obtained citizenship in 1956 and died in 1966.

Enas is still celebrated today for his gorgeous portraits, in European-style, especially those of royals.

 

Mohamed Hoessein Enas

This scene struck me from the first glance. I think it tells very well part of the culture not only Malaysian. In reality, it is not described in any way but it is easy to understand the meaning.

A young girl sitting “bersimpuh” (as they say in the Malay language), wearing kain batik and kebaya on top, while the man dresses in classic Malaysian kampung style, village, with sarong (kain pelekat) and baju Melayu with in the head the black Songkok, seated “bersila”.

A letter in front of them. She looks to the side, embarrassed and sad, he has a stern look.

Certainly, that is a “surat cinta”, a love letter (forbidden) and her father, after finding it, is admonishing her daughter.

The girl looks young. She is certainly not married yet, maybe she is promised to someone chosen by the family but she has a secret boyfriend.

This is a classic theme, which is – for example – the plot of an old black and white film from 1960, “Antara dua darjat” (Between two classes), directed and starring the famous P. Ramlee, which tells the very difficult love between a girl from a rich family and her boyfriend of poor origins, hampered by the hatred of her father. There is the finding of the love letter in the movie.

But also in Indonesia, this moment is in the plot of the famous classic novel “Sitti Nurbaya”, written by Marah Rusli, in 1922, in which the impossible love of two teenagers under Dutch colonialism is told. The love between Sitti and Samsul hindered by the families that will end in tragedy, with the death of the girl offered in marriage to a rich man to pay her father's debts; a novel that has been compared to “Romeo and Juliet”.

“P. Ramlee”. Mohamed Hoessein Enas

I immediately loved this painting, like others that tell the culture and tradition of Malaysia. That of the old days, the “zaman dulu” as they say in the language.

Not that this atmosphere in the painting has completely disappeared, but now maybe it's a message read on the phone instead of a letter.

My mother told me that when she was still thirteen, in the small town of Sardinia, her mother happened to find letters or cards for her and burned them angry.

My mother begged her to at least tell her who wrote them, she didn't want to read them but at least to know who liked her. Nothing.

It is certainly not a question of religion. At least it is not an Islamic prerogative for which only after marriage can there be intimacy, and – in certain contexts – the fiancé must be accepted, if not imposed, by the family. It also happened in postwar Italy.

Mohamed Hoessein Enas is inspired by the realism of the European school, but it's in his details that he has his charm, in the father's girl frown, in her hands that twist nervously, with her gaze fleeing to the side.

It almost seems to imagine the mother who listens in silence, behind the kitchen door, without any possibility of intervening. This is the father's obligation – to warn.

It is not a masterpiece or an icon of Asian art, I know it well, but it has its own particular charm. Precisely in the details and in how he manages to suggest even what is not seen. It seems to hear the noises of the hens outside the wooden house, the acrid smell of the father's unfiltered cigarettes, the mother walking nervously in the kitchen, with her hair tied up and kain batik, the laughter of children running around playing in front of the house.

The girl's inability to justify herself, with her words dying in her throat.

Who knows how many women, now adults or elderly, will have a long sigh looking at this painting. Without knowing that, miles and miles away, my mother, a young child in a small town in Sardinia, also suffered the same pains.

With different clothes, in different houses.

But with the same drawing of feelings.

 

This is a painting that tells us not only about the faraway lands of Malaysia or Indonesia.

It tells us about a time that was also ours.

 

Faraway, yet so close! Someone said...

Mohamed Hoessein Enas

Dato’ Mohammed Hoessein Enas 

Italian version