Sacred allusions: Spiritual and temporal powers in Indonesian arboreal imagery

'Tree of Life' is a term conventionally used to describe an arboreal motif that is widespread in the visual arts of Java, and its cultural diaspora in the archipelago, notably Lampung, during the early modern era. The motif has often been linked to ancient indigenous traditions associating spiritual power with trees and the depiction of the celestial Kalpataru in art of the preceding Hindu-Buddhist period (c.750-1500). However, the ascendancy of Islam in the 16th-century redefined many aspects of the region's cultural practices and coincided with increased inter-island contacts between Java and neighbouring southern Sumatra. These factors invigorated the birth of a new aesthetic in which the arboreal motif became one of the defining features. This is illustrated in two remarkable wood sculptures created in Lampung for the cakak pepadun customary system and that were inspired by contemporaneous art fashions across the Sunda Straits on Java. They are a Pair of Doors (lawon kori), dated 1677-1735, and Throne-rest (sesako), dated 1843-1903, now in the collection of the Art Gallery of South Australia. An examination of the arboreal motifs on the two sculptures and their location within the context of similar motifs in Javanese art reveals a multi-valency more diverse than implied in the generic term Tree of Life. The arboreal representations suggest that the tree subject evokes locations in the landscape, either real or imaginary, where seen and unseen forces manifest. Rather than representing the Tree of Life as an archetypal symbol, the motif may be understood through the Javanese device of pasemon, meaning an allusion or symbolic hint where one subject may imply multiple meanings. From this perspective, the tree represents a place of momentous encounters where spiritual and temporal power merges.