Aanya Desai

My painting was inspired by Boschbrand by Raden Saleh, in 1849. Raden Saleh was born in 1811 and passed away in 1880, at 69 years old. He was considered to be the first “modern” artist in Indonesia. He was from the Arab-Javanese ethnicity. Saleh presented, and gifted in 1850, the painting to King William the third and eventually, in 1851, Saleh became the king’s painter. At work, Saleh met a Belgian painter AAJ Payen, who was commissioned by the Dutch government to paint Javanese landscapes. Payen was very impressed by Saleh’s art abilities that he persuaded the Dutch government to send Saleh to Netherlands to learn more about art and painting. After 20 years of studying art in the Netherlands he painted Boschbrand. ​

​The colour scheme and the intricate detail of the animals of the painting really caught my eye. In my opinion the dull colours in Boschbrand had me mesmerised compared to the other bright coloured paintings in the museum. Boschbrand is an oil painting 300 x 396cm. This painting made me think of all the forest fires in countries and really touched my heart. Boschbrand shows what is happening in the real world, about all the animals suffering from our actions.​

​I want my art to show the same. Show other people what is happening in the world. In my painting I used blends of orange red and brown hues as the background. And on top I used wooden blocks to portray trees. Long blocks to portray fallen trees from the fire. Some grey shades to show the smoke of the fire. My motif is a paw to show the paws of the tigers and animals that lived in that forest. The forest fire made me think of how many wildfires there were in India and I found out there are more than a thousand wildfires in India. There are about 3000 tigers in India.