Fossil remains of homo erectus, an ancestor of modern man (homo sapiens), have been found in the Solo and Brantas river valleys in Central Java. These fossils, known as Java Man, are estimated to be about 1.8 million years old; however, few traces of human life from the more recent Paleolithic and Mesolithic times (Old and Middle Stone ages) have been excavated. Some crude stone implements, such as a rectangular ax, and rock paintings in caves of the eastern islands have been found.

The Indonesian archipelago stretches for more than 3,000 miles east to west and is the largest island complex in the world. The sea has inevitably influenced Indonesian history. Not surprisingly, the boat became a pervasive metaphor in literary and oral tradition and in the arts in Indonesia. Monsoon winds, blowing north and south of the equator, have facilitated communication within the archipelago and with the rest of maritime Asia; the warm rainfall has nourished rich vegetation. In early times the timber and spices of Java and the eastern islands were known afar, as were also the resins from the exceptionally wet equatorial jungle in the western islands of Sumatra and Borneo. Not long after the beginning of the Christian era, goods were already being shipped overseas, and navigable rivers brought the Indonesian hinterland into touch with distant markets.

Rock inscriptions on Java dating from the 5th or 6th century tell of Taruma, an extensive Javanese kingdom that was centered near present-day Jakarta. The people of Taruma observed Hindu religious rites of India and promoted irrigation works. By the beginning of the 7th century Java was home to several important kingdoms, and a harbor-kingdom was also apparently well established on the southeastern coast of Sumatra. The kingdoms of this time fell into two main types of political units: the seafaring trading states along the coasts of Sumatra, northern Java, Borneo, Sulawesi, and some of the other eastern islands; and the rice-based inland kingdoms, particularly of eastern and central Java. The greatest maritime empire was Sri Vijaya, a Mahayana Buddhist kingdom on Sumatra’s southeast coast.

Indonesia exhibits a rich diversity of cultural forms that range from those of the old Malay, which are preserved mainly in the remote interiors of Sumatra and Borneo, through the traditional Javanese and Balinese forms, which are heavily influenced by the Hindu stories of the Mahabharata and the Ramayana, to the modern culture that has evolved from this complex heritage. The American art historian Claire Holt, in Art in Indonesia (1967), has divided cultural life into three overlapping spheres: “the Heritage,” which includes the statues and monuments of the ancient cultures; “Living Tradition,” which covers the traditional theatre using shadow plays

Indonesian culture mixes the traditions of many civilizations and religions, including Hinduism, Buddhism, Islam, Southeast Asian, Polynesian, Chinese, Arabic, and Dutch. Since independence, the arts in Indonesia have been influenced by domestic politics. During the 1950s and 1960s the left-leaning Institute for People’s Culture (also known as Lekra) was very influential. With the backing of Sukarno, Indonesia’s first president, Lekra strongly resisted American cultural influence and favored socialist realism in art. After the 1965 attempt to overthrow Sukarno and the ascension to power of Suharto in 1966, there were widespread killings of many Indonesians, including members of the artistic elite. Many artists went into exile and others, such as the prominent author Pramoedya Ananta Toer, were jailed. The government fostered some of the traditional arts of Indonesia but maintained a close watch on many independent strands of contemporary art. Permits were required before plays could be staged and books were banned with little explanation.

Javanese monuments, the Saivite temple of the Diyeng (Dieng) Plateau, date to the early 8th century. The Sailendra dynasty, which ruled Java and Sumatra (8th–9th century), built the great Mahayana Buddhist monuments, including that of Borobudur, around AD 800. Late in the 9th century the kings of Mataram built the Hindu monuments around Prambanan. Lara Yonggrang (Lara Jonggrang) Temple, commonly called Prambanan Temple, is the best-preserved of a series of Hindu temple complexes in the region. It consists of six main temples; three large ones along the west, dedicated to Siva, Vishnu, and Brahma, contain fine statues. Of the three smaller temples along the east, the middle one contains a statue of Nandi, the bull of Siva. The main temples are heavily ornamented with stone carvings of the gods and other heavenly beings, and there is a series of relief panels depicting the Ramayana story.

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