ASI, under the able leadership of its present Director Dr. T.Sathiamurthy, is coming out with a programme to create an Art Gallary in the Big Temple complex, Thanjavur.
They have spent almost a year in photographing the Rajaraja's paintings in the Upper level floor. They have patched nearly 40 fragments of paintings to make ONE FULL SIZE painting ( to 50% scale only) still about 6 feet long and 6 feet wide - each comprising of :
1. Nataraja of Chidambaram - being worshipped by RR with his consorts; 2. Thirupurantakan - 3. Sundaramurthy Nayanar reaching Kailasm with Cheraman nayanaar and 4. Dakshinamurthy
Many of the visitors to the Temple could not have seen the original which is protected from the public for fear of detoriation.
ASI is bringing out almost exact replica to be viewed at the Gallary!
Our Group member Gokul is working on filling the gaps in the version to create a near original version - which is also likely to be kept for public viewing.
ASI also is preparing the Fibre class model of 81 Karnas carved inside the upper levels for Public viewing.
The Gallary is getting ready for Public view before the 1st Week of May 2005.
After inaguration of the Gallary in Thanjavur, some of the paintings are likely to be put on Sale.
I suggested for a similar Gallary in Chennai when interacted. Their initial reaction is that no popular personality is keen in having any association with the Big Temple ! - which is True also !
>>After inaguration of the Gallary in Thanjavur, some of the >>paintings are likely to be put on Sale.
I hope you are referring to copies of the version that ASI has generated, not the originals. Please clarify. It is already heart- breaking to see Indian art(stolen or otherwise) in foreign museums. We should not let it happen any more.
>>ASI is planning to put on sale about 1' x 1' size >>of these photographs after inaguration of the Art >>Gallery - so that those who do not have the >>opportunity to see the original version - can >>atleast see and appreciate the phtographic versions. That's a neat idea. Please keep us informed of details about the location of sale etc.
Also, are there any plans to use these paintings on stamps? Stamp collecting is still a very popular hobby around the world and will bring in revenue even now, when people have reduced their reliance on postal communication. This is also a good way to spread knowledge. I have been outside India all my adult life, so I'm not familiar with procedures there. Here in the US, ordinary people can make suggestions to the US Postal Service via their website on stamp designs. A committee chooses the most popular themes and suggests the postage value. The postal service then issues the stamp. This is a simplified view of a process that can take years, but at least the layman can make his voice heard. If the Indian postal service has something similar, we can all appeal for a RR painting stamp. Does anybody know if this is even possible?
To take things further would be to have a audio guide as well.
Each picture with a pre taped information ...Its very common in the west that adds more information than just looking at colours and admiring the pictures
Gokul is very good in that critically analysing the picture and critiqueing it
If you could make a short verse in tamil and hindi and english....
What happens everywhere is they take your licence or passport or creditcard as surity to ensure you return the handsets
May be this is something you can take up with the ASI
> > I am still amazed at the fact that for a large structure, the foundation is > laid at a depth of hardly 4.5 feet (not meters!) only. > > Great.. sps
Is it really true SB Because that bit of thanjai doent have any firm sand its all alluvial so how did it stand and how is it stil standing?
second any evidence as where he got all the stones for such a big temple