Koempoel - The Commotion at the Beach
Many great Indonesian artists hailed from Surabaya, and one of them is Koempoel. Unfortunately, there are hardly any records about him, and his name is not as famous as that of Affandi and Basoeki Abdullah.
Koempoel was born in 1912 in Ngawi, East Java. His family held a high rank in the Dutch Indies railway company, before the independence of Indonesia, giving him the privilege to study at the Hollandasch Inlandsche School (HIS) in Surabaya. It was at that school that Koempoel began studying painting and met Gerard Pieter Adolf, a painter.
Koempoel's paintings are dominated by themes of landscape and people's daily lives. One of those paintings is this painting called "The Commotion at the Beach." Within the impressionist painting, Koempoel captures the busy atmosphere that surrounds the people living and carrying out activities along the shoreline.
Some people are buying fish as fishermen boats leave for the day, and a pair of oxen are pulling a cart. Koempoel's artworks are now scattered all over the place, some kept by collectors, and one became part of the presidential palace collection.
