In Buffaloes Ploughing the Rice Field (1976), Indonesia's modern master Affandi transforms a humble agrarian scene into a tempest of motion, emotion, and spiritual energy. The canvas quivers with life—earth and sky swirl together in restless harmony, animated by the vigorous movement of man and beast. Through dynamic strokes of ochre, black, green, and blue, Affandi captures not just a moment of rural labour, but the eternal rhythm of creation itself. The buffaloes and the ploughman dissolve into the very soil they till, their bodies rendered as pulsating lines of energy, testifying to Affandi's lifelong belief in the unity of all living things.

"I paint with feeling," Affandi once explained, "for feeling is life itself."¹ This declaration forms the key to understanding his art. He did not seek to depict appearances but to translate emotion directly onto canvas. His unconventional method—squeezing paint straight from the tube and shaping it with his fingers—was an extension of this philosophy. The act of painting became a form of communion, as tactile and immediate as the labour of the farmer in his field. "When I paint," he reflected, "the only things that exist are God, the subject, and myself."²

In this work, that trinity finds profound expression. The spiritual and the physical intertwine: the heaving buffaloes, the furrowed soil, the looming sky—all are rendered in a storm of pigment that evokes both toil and transcendence. The painting's sweeping rhythm mirrors the cyclical nature of life—the endless turning of seasons, of ploughing, planting, and harvest.

Created during the later phase of Affandi's career, Buffaloes Ploughing the Rice Field stands as a testament to his enduring empathy for the ordinary lives that form the heart of Indonesia. The buffaloes, symbols of strength and humility, become avatars of perseverance and harmony with nature. Here, Affandi's vision transcends realism: he paints the invisible energies that bind humanity to the land. What we witness is not merely a scene, but an act of devotion—a hymn to labour, to the divine in the everyday, and to the indomitable pulse of life itself. Undoubtedly, in the vast canvas of Indonesian modernism, Affandi (1907–1990) stands as a titan, his expressionist fervour transforming the mundane into the monumental.

¹ Affandi, Exhibition Catalogue, National Gallery of Indonesia, 2007.
² Quoted in Art and Soul of Affandi, ArtDesignCafe, 1994.