Batuan is a village located approximately seven kilometers north of Denpasar and ten kilometers south of Ubud, is a favorite with the art center of Bali. It is known for the traditional style of painting, dancing, carving of wood panels. The local artist here has a small community where they are going to work and sell their painting to the visitors who are interested in visiting their village.
The westerners did not influence Batuan Village as they were in Ubud. Often, the Batuan paintings were dark, crowded representations of legendary scenes or everyday themes, wicked animal monsters and witches. The paintings of Batuan Village were gradients from black to white ink laid across most surfaces to create an atmosphere of darkness and dullness. The designs covered the entire space in the later years, which contributed often to this Balinese painting’s crowded nature.
The artisans of the Batuan Village are known for their Balinese work of art. Leading artists from the 1930s belonging to leading Brahman families, including Ida Bagus Made Togog, I Dewa Nyoman Mura (1877-1950) and I Dewa Putu Kebes (1874-1962), traditional Balinese painters of the Wayang style for ceremonial textiles of temples.
History of Batuan Village
Batuan has been a village of Balinese artwork and handicrafts for more than a thousand years. According to recorded history, Batuan village has a thousand-year-old history -begins in A.D. 1022, with an inscription in the main temple of the village, the Temple of the Village of Pura Desa Batuan.
Batuan Village had to be there in the Age of the Warmadewa Dynasty in Bali.
Eventual Batuan came to be called Batuan by the word Batu / Rock because, in those times, this region is a rocky region (in northern Batuan the renowned Balinese sandstones are still made), which is also known as Batuan Village because of daily changes in its pronunciation.