Mural Art

In News

• The Wall of Peace, a great work of modern mural art on the 700-feet long compound wall of Government Vocational Higher Secondary School at Cherpulassery, was inaugurated in Kerala.
  • The word ‘peace’ has been embossed on the wall in 250 world languages.

The Mural Art

• About:
  • Mural art is basically an artwork made on a wall or a permanent surface. INDIA has one of the greatest traditions of painting of the ancient world.
• History:
  • The history of Indian murals begins in earliest and early medieval times, from 2nd century BC to 8th – 10th century AD.
  • The earliest surviving mural paintings in the Indian subcontinent are those of Ajanta. The paintings of Ajanta were made in two phases and the oldest dated to around the 2nd century B.C. The wonderful final phase was around the 5th century A.D., under the patronage of the Vakatakas.
• Features of Indian Mural Paintings:
  • The Mural Paintings are comparatively different from all other forms of illustrative art. The two major characteristics which make them significant are their organic relation to architecture and broad public importance. The Indian murals are rich in expressive practicality.
  • The utilization of colour, design, and thematic treatment in mural paintings has the capability to bring about an extreme change in the sensation of spatial proportions of the building. Mural Paintings are the only form of artwork which is truly three-dimensional, since it modifies and shares a given space.
  • The colour materials on the mural paintings were derived from the natural materials like terracotta, chalk, red ochre and yellow ochre mixed with animal fat. 
  • The significant mural paintings are found at Bagh in Madhya Pradesh, caves of Badami in Karnataka, Sittannavasal in Tamil Nadu and the Kailashanatha temple in Ellora, Maharashtra of 8th century AD and known for their linear styles.
• Different types of Indian Mural Paintings:
  • Tempera Painting: Tempera painting is done by preparation of pigment into a water-miscible medium. 
  • Oil Painting: Oil Painting is a standard of painting in oil colours which grips suspension of pigments into drying oils.
  • Fresco Painting: Fresco Painting is an ancient practice that engrossed painting of water-based pigments on recently applied plaster, usually on wall façade.
• Other ancient Mural Paintings of India:
  • There are fragments of paintings of the time of Ajanta which survive at many Buddhist cave sites, including Pitalkhora near Ellora, in Maharashtra.
  • Nine caves were excavated on the slopes of the Vindhya hills above the Bagh river during the reign of the Guptas, between the 4th and 6th centuries A.D.
  • Very little of the paintings survive in the 6th century Hindu caves of Badami in Karnataka.
  • Expression to themes relating to Siva in the paintings in the temples of Panamalai and Kailashanatar in Kancheepuram.
  • In the 9th century Jain cave of Sittannavasal in Tamil Nadu, there is a marvellous lotus pond painted on the ceiling. 
  • The monastery of Alchi is an oasis of beauty and colour in the midst of the vast and barren landscape of Ladakh. One of the masterpieces of the Alchi paintings is the Green Tara. 
  • The temple at Lepakshi was built in the 16th century by the Nayaka brothers, Virupanna and Viranna, at a centre of trade and pilgrimage in the Vijayanagar empire.

Source: TH