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istic style. Perhaps this distinction dates from ancient times. Heroes , on the one hand, Were regarded as superior beings belonging to the sphere of gods and revered ancestors. Less exalted characters in epic tales, espe cially the panakawans, cunning servants and mentors, on the other hand, were considered as human, or at least as partaking of human nature and moving in two spheres, the natural and the supernatural. It seems likely that the distinction in styles is to be explained m this manner. In popular tales panakawans are given wives and many children. The nature of the panakawan descendants is human or even demonical. Moens’s collection (see 43.000) contains many illustrations of absurdly clow- nesque and demonical figures drawn in a naturalistic and even realistic style. Several drawings in Moens’s collection seem to be Products of the phantasy of popular artists, they (J 0 not represent generally known char acters. Anyhow, they are interesting as spe cimens of the unsophisticated country people’s kind of realism. In the eighteenth century cultural contacts between Dutch officials and merchants of Batavia and Semarang and the Javanese Courts became gradually closer. Probably Lutch prints which at the time were popular lu The Netherlands became known in Java nese circles. Javanese artists began to make illustrations of books on contemporaneous history, drawn wholly in a naturalistic style. The fashion of the clothes of both Javanese ar) d Dutch gentlemen appearing in the scenes Is clear evidence of the period of the making. The number of manuscripts illustrated in this style is not great, but they are remark- a ble as first witnesses of the acculturation

of European art in Java. On the one hand, the existence of a naturalistic style in Java nese art of the pre-Islamic period may have facilitated the adaptation of the Dutch man ner of drawing. On the other hand, drawings and pictures in modern European style, seen everywhere in Java in school-books and illustrated papers since the beginning of the twentieth century, no doubt influenced the realistic representation of clownesque per sonages originally belonging to wayatj tales. Javanese drawings in a naturalistic style have rarely if ever drawn the attention of European scholars in the nineteenth and in the beginning of the twentieth century. Though their artistic standard is not high they deserve appreciation for expressing the characteristically Javanese kind of humour. It is often apparent in depictions of scenes where personages belonging to the pana kawan group, or related to it, are acting. Several drawings of this kind have been reproduced in the present author’s “Javaanse Volksvertoningen”, Batavia/Djakarta, 1938. See also “Volksoverlevering in Beeld”, by Mrs J. H. Hooykaas-van Leeuwen Boom kamp, Djawa, vol. 19, 1939, and the refer ences in the General Index under the catch word illustration. 60.051, Plate no 17, Ki Ahmad and Siti Bagedad, LOr 8655, Ahmad-Muhammad romance in verse, with many polychrome illustrations in a naturalistic style, dated 1828 A.D., p. 65. Originally collection Juynboll. See Synopsis 30.732. The original picture is 19,5 x 14,5 cm. Central North Coast. The captions (written in the picture after wards, with red ink) are: on the left: Siti Bagëdad amijëti sikil qraqkëp ijëqëbuti,