Monumental JavaScheltema, J. F. (Johann Friedrich )
History
Monumental Java
Scheltema, J. F. (Johann Friedrich )
Indonesia -- Antiquities; Java (Indonesia) -- Antiquities; Monuments -- Indonesia -- Java
Curiosity being excited, there is the impulse to satisfy vulgar demands,
to cater to coarse appetites when admitting every one who knocks at the
door of the treasure-house however unworthy. Trippers from the trading
centres on the coast swarm round as their fancies guide; tourists from
distant climes scour the land, either single spies or driven in noisy
battalions of “conducted parties”. Travel in Java is already assuming
the character of holiday excursions pressed upon the public in bombastic
handbills and posters of transportation companies. Revenue being the
principal objective of Dutch colonial solicitude, the opportunity
they create is gladly seized to levy gate-money from visitors to the
_chandi_ Mendoot.[9] And since the Philistines, who do not appreciate
the beauties of a building they cannot comprehend, expect something
in exchange for their contribution to the upkeep, visible tokens of
their really having been there, we shall soon hear of photographers
established in the temple to perpetuate the memory of spoony couples,
giggling and offensive, magnesium flashed at the feet of the Most
Venerable, or of the Boro Budoor in a blaze of Bengal fire to please
mediocrity, which wants barbarous stimulants. And apart from such
concessions to the exigencies of inane modern travel, how distressing
the plain tokens of neglect and spoliation! As Psyche began to mourn
Love after she had come to grasp his excellence, so the discerning
one, advancing to the apprehension of eternal truth there enshrined in
beauty, a call to heaven in stone, laments less what is gone of material
substance by the ravages of time, than what is taken from the spiritual
essence by willful mutilation; by methods of repair embodied in iron
scrapers to remove moss and weeds, incidentally spoiling the delicate
lines of reliefs and decoration; by filling gaps with any rubbish
lying about, mending and patching _à la grosse morbleu_; by additions
for the convenience of sightseers, like the unsightly staircase askew
near one of the original, dilapidated approaches. It is devoutly to be
hoped that the overhauling now in progress will, at least, remove such
incongruities and avoid new horrors of so-called restoration.[10]
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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