Indian Paintings

Paintings in India

Hindu legends and myths mention the making of Poraiture Chitralekha is mentioned as the first woman painter who was an accomplished port raitist. Such paintings were to be found in palaces of Kosala and Magadha. Walls were decorated with co loured murals representing human beings, animals, religious paintings were being made on cloth or wood. Paintings in early times was one of the nine basic crafts and cannon which was laid down in handbooks such as Vatsayana's Kamsutra. The earliest Indian paintings are prehistoric and primitive - hunting scenes were drawn on walls - witness of which are still in existence in some caves and can be seen at Kaimur ranges at Madhya Pradesh. Stone age paintings are found in Vindhian hills, some near village Sinhanpur - Madhya Pradesh, Mirzapur in Uttar Pradesh, Bihar and Tamil Nadu. They depict in a realistic way like animals running or leaping, birds flying warriors in pursuit and resemble paintings found at Cogul in Spain and in Africa.

Paintings on the pottery began from Indus valley. The earliest paintings of Ajanta date back to the 1st century BC and the latest to the 8th century. The spirit of the compassionate Buddha is their Jataka tales elaborated the vicissitudes of these incarnations and the Ajanta artists painted them in sinuous line and sensitive color. City, countryside and forests, men and women of every type, Fauna and floras all are mentioned in these murals Brush and chisel accompanied the message of peace and Ajanta became a fountainhead of Asian paintings and murals. Other school and style flourished in Kashmir and South India from 6th to 19th centuries. Mural tradition in Chalukyan - Badami (6111 century AD); Pallava Panamalai (7111 century AD); Pandyan Sitrannavasal 19"1 century AD); Chola Tanjaore (12111 century AD); Lepakshi of Vijayanagara (16'11 century AD) and the murals of Kerala reaching to middle of the 191h century. A later painting had come down from mural surface to miniature style spread to western India and is seen in numerous illuminated manuscripts. With the decay of Buddhism (in the 7th ) art of painting declined.

Other schools and styles also flourished in Kitshmir and South India 6th the 9th centuries. The Bengal Pala school flourished for 500 years till 125 which produced small paintings and miniature executed on palm-leaf manuscripts, the most important painters being Bhipals and Dlimana. With the decay of Buddhism (in the 71h c.) art of painting declined some examples of these Pala school paintings (12th c.), some Jain book illustrations (15th c.), some Brahmanical frescoes at Ellora (12th c. or) have survived. The Gujarati school flourished from the beginning of the 12th c. to the 17th c was greatly supported by the Jains and was mostly confined I illustrations in Jain palm leaf manuscripts and miniatures. With the establishment of Mughal rule in India (1550 - 1880 AD),new style of paintings came into existence. Foreign artists made their way to India during Akbar's time and the famous ones are Farrukh, Beg, Bad-al-Samand and Mir Sayed Ali The famous Indian painters of the time are Bassawan, Daswanth and Kesudasa. Forty famous artists lived in Akbar's time who were also Indian and Persian artists – one man doing drawings and the another the coloring, a third one for the ,details. Artists received further momentum when Akbar commissioned the translation and illustration of Indian texts like Ramayana and Mahabharata.

The Mughal kalam suffered due to Aurangazeb's rigid observance of the Islamic command, but the Mulsim rulers of Bijapur, Golconda and Hyderabad were great patrons of art and paintings - a Deccani school was established in the south which had traits of Mughal paintings. Local schools at Tanjavur and Mysore also grew up and later reached its zenith in the first half of the 19th c. under the patronage of the ruler Raya Krishnadevraya Wodeyar and the painters of Tanjavur school did portraiture on ivory. Declines of palronage in the Mughal court at Delhi artists moved to a more congenial environment and were welcomed by the rulers of Rajasthan. Rajasthani school (1550 - 1900 AD) of paintings, murals, miniatures came into existence. Frescoe paintings was done on the walls III palaces at Jaipur, Udaipur, Bikaner and Jodhpur. Another branch of Rajasthani school was at orcha and Datia Bundelkhand Most of these paintings have the themes of the Krishna stories, Raslila and Hindu religious subjects. There are also the Pahari schools which celebrated local kalam.