Paintings

According to literary sources, painting flourished in India from very early periods. The urge of humans to capture and preserve the emotion born out of visualizing a spectacle, led to these form of art.

The earliest examples of Indian paintings are the rock paintings, the cave paintings of Ajanta and Ellora the wall paintings on Brahadeeswara temple in Thanjavur from 1st century A.D. and the Kalamkari art forms as seen in the Vidharba temple in Lepakshi.

However, the origin of painting is traced to a legend recorded in the Chitralakshana-the earliest Indian treatise on painting. It is said that when the son of a king's high priest died, Lord Brahma asked the king to paint a likeness of the boy and he would breathe life into him again. And this is how the first painting was made.

There are two distinct strands of painting in India. The first strand is rooted in religious traditions, followed by its growth by the patronage of the rich and royal. The Buddhist frescoes on the walls of the Ajanta caves in Maharashtra, the Miniature paintings of the Mughal court, are some of the examples of this category.

The other is rooted in everyday life and folk tradition. The famous Madhubani and Mithila paintings of Bihar, the Worli paintings of Maharashtra, the Mandana paintings of Rajasthan, which are basically wall and floor paintings, are some of the examples.

Painting on cloth by Kalamkari work of Kalahasti and Masulipatnam in Andhra Pradesh, and phad painting of Rajasthan are paintings of a different style. Another unique style of painting is the Thanjavur paintings, which were originally commissioned by Maratha kings of the 18th century.

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