Raden Saleh is rightly associated with the beginning of a new visual approach to Indonesian art. As the first Indonesian painter to study in Europe, he brought a new understanding of visual arts back to his home country, though his work remained deeply rooted in Javanese culture. That connection consistently appears – even if somehow hidden – behind the varnish of his quasi-European iconographies. The goal of this exhibition is to bring a visibility and understanding to his hybrid art, to show that Raden Saleh started a new tradition that was not radically separated from the preceding periods. He felt obliged to a modernization that was both entrenched in a European as well as Javanese tradition.