HISTOIRE DE LA VILLE
Discover Ubud, a tourist destination steeped in history.
A vassal principality of the royal courts of Peliatan and Gianyar until the 19th century, Ubud succeeded in escaping Dutch domination and expanding its lands through a policy of alliances at the end of the 19th and beginning of the 20th centuries. In the 1930s, its recent prosperity and the open-mindedness of its king allowed it to welcome foreign artists, who participated in a new cultural boom. As early as 1927, the king of Ubud, Cokorda Gedé Raka Sukawati, had invited Walter Spies and Rudolph Bonnet, and then, in the 1930s, Miguel and Rose Covarrubias, Margareth Mead, Gregory Bateson, Colin McPhee, Vicky Baum, and a whole cohort of writers and anthropologists who were going to make the island discoverable to the world.
During the interwar period, Cokorda Gedé Raka Sukawati became a member of the Dutch government in Batavia, a responsibility that allowed him to meet many diplomats and artists passing through the capital. In 1936, the "Pita Maha" association was created in Ubud, which would train a new generation of Balinese artists and encourage the renewal of painting and sculpture. Today everyone claims to be an artist in Ubud and every shop has been transformed into a gallery. Every evening, traditional dance performances in various places in the city attract hundreds of spectators.
The best troupes of the island perform here to meet the needs of tourists.
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