hi the forthcomming issue (by this weekend) of Frontline (brought by The Hindu) has an interesting article (10 pages) on an aspect of chola art. Special notice to S.Gokul.
Sublime manifestations of art brought forth by connoisseurs.
I remember frontline carried a series called rediscovering indian paintings couple of years back where they compared/contrasted the cave paintings of ajanta caves ( 2Century bc), Badami ( 6th cent), Kanchipuram temple murals (7century) with the big temple ( 11th century).
sure Gokul will like to come up with up a comparison between the works in the latest images below with the sigiriya paintings/ajanta cave works.
Being an amateur at this i take the liberty to draw some comparisons.
they all seem to be painted in water colours on dry plaster on the walls of the rock-carved rooms and galleries - surely both the later day works have drawn inspiration from ajanta/classical Gupta art.
The big temple paintings are similar to the Ajanta paintings, executed with free flowing confident strokes, though the ajanta works predominatly illustrate Buddhist narratives, both of them depict crowded scenes of people filling up the entire canvas. antoher important feature is that all the subjects drawn frame the main subject of the painting with their eye focus.
The big temple works are more refined in terms of proporations and contors and the full, sensual forms of the figures are created by the soft lines of the contours and by the interplay of colour, light, and shade, which accentuates the shapes and creates subtle effects in the expressions of the people. The big temple drawings are also richly adorned with ornaments and headgear and seem to fill all available space in the panels.
In contrast the the figures from Sigiriya display simplicity. The paintings contain less variety of colour and place more emphasis on outline n style. The focus of the painting is as a whole ( maybe due to loss of a large part of them maybe we are seeing only the fringe fill ins)
One more things with eyes : notice the portrayal of eyes - the indian style is more expansive and expressive ( sometimes even a bit out of proportion) whereas the sigiriya ones are more demure/sublime.
Thanks Sriraman. I'll look forward to it. Missing Museum visit.
> hi > the forthcomming issue (by this weekend) of Frontline (brought by The > Hindu) has an interesting article (10 pages) on an aspect of chola art. > Special notice to S.Gokul.
Dear All Freat articles...its makes me really proud to say that I know two of them personally who made this happen Satyamoorthy Sir ans Sriraman sir...Well Done we are all proud of you
we all should really admire and appreciate the fantastic work executed by ASI Team lead by S A Sathyamoorthy sir , Asstt. S A P.S Raman sir and N. Thyagarajan and shri Kanniappan in revealing / making the lost Chola Frescos of circa 1000-14 AD to every one,s reach.