Boschbrand (Forest Fire) - The plants on the cliff

Find the nine o’clock directional marker and move your finger towards five o’clock until you come across matte textures that represents several cliffside plants. The plant with heart-shaped leaves and white and pink flowers is a product of Raden Saleh’s creative imagination. These plants stand out against the rock, their edges glinting with red-orange light. Around the plants, the diagonal criss-cross pattern represents the edge of the cliff, with its rugged, towering rocks.

As you move your finger up, you’ll find that the plants growing on the cliff are ablaze and shrouded in smoke, their leaves swaying to the right with the wind. In the upper left corner is the distant forest. Moving to the right, you’ll encounter a jagged texture which represents a palm tree. At its five o’ clock, stalks of lalang, a type of reed with long, needle-like leaves and white plumes, are present abundantly on the cliff.

As you move your finger to the middle of the painting, you’ll come across a series of dotted lines. Trace the outline with your finger. These are the animals from the previous layers that are trapped with no escape as the fire gradually consumes everything. Beyond the right edge lies only a perilous fall down the cliff.

Once you have explored all four layers. flip to the next layer to experience all the separate elements of the tactile adaptation framed in a single panel.