Tuesday, April 1, 2014

Enjoy the royal patronage work of Kerala Mural Paintings at IGRMS

For art connoisseurs of Mysore who are familiar with traditional Mysore Paintings and Tanjore Painting have got a opportunity to learn another form of traditional painting namely the 'Kerala Mural Paintings', whose origins dateback to 12th century.

KR Babu hailing from Kozhikode, Kerala will be teaching this rare art form at Indira Gandhi Rashtirya Manav Sangrahalaya in city, under its 'Do and Learn' series. The classes have already commenced from March 9 and concludes on March 18. During this 10-day workshop, participants will be taught to draw Saraswathi and Radha Chamaiya.

Participant Rashmi who is undergoing training said that she was eagerly waiting for the past four years to learn this rare traditional art form of Kerala. “There are significant differences between Tanjore and Kerala mural painting. Tanjore paintings requires lot of materials, whereas playing with five colours, one can create wonderful paintings in Kerala mural paintings.”

“There are well laid down principles for the depicting eyes to express different emotions. So also for the painting of animals, trees, mountains, waterfalls, rivers, fish, temples,” added Uma.
Another participant Shoba said that the myriad colours of the paintings are very attractive which made her interested in learning Kerala Mural paintings.
Explaining about the rich tradition of ancient murals, Babu said that just as the paintings of Ajanta are considered unique for their colour, the mural paintings of Kerala stand out for their emphasis on beauty, clarity and symmetry. The paintings were drawn on the walls of ancient temples, churches, depicting religious and mystic themes. The Gods, Goddess and episodes from the great epics are the themes of the paintings, he added.

The speciality of this art form is that the colour for the paintings are obtained from natural pigments and vegetable colours. Saffaron red is the most predominant colour of the kerala murals, said Babu, who himself creates colours by crushing certain yellow and green stones. Retaining the white background surface, colours are then filled for remaining canvas.

Babu who has bagged three state level awards and two national awards said that there is good demand for the art not only in India, but also abroad.

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