Leela Gopinath is a retired doctor who loves traveling and painting. She runs a travel blog where she documents her adventures. Apart from that, she professionally paints in a style that is native to the State of Kerala. In this article, she introduces the artform by describing its history and specialty.
Since the Palaeolithic age, humans have expressed their thoughts and feelings through the medium of murals. Traditionally, murals are paintings or frescos on walls and other stone surfaces and are found all over the world. Murals from different parts of the world may vary significantly and more specifically, they are related to the events and traditions of different countries and cultures and its people. Along the same lines, we have mural art which is specific to the state of Kerala in India.
Mural art from Kerala has been traced back to somewhere between the 9th and 12th centuries. Temples and royal palaces were home to these works of art and enjoyed royal patronage.
While the Thinandikara cave temple and Tiruvanchikulam temple are considered to house the oldest murals, some of the temples in Kerala house valuable mural art from more recent times. Guruvayur, Ettumanoor, Vadakkumnathan and Vaikom are shining examples and the palaces of Padmanabhapuram and Mattanchery also house valuable mural art.
Mural artisans were under royal patronage in ancient times and reached near extinction after the slow dying of royalty in India. It was revived after independence and Guruvayur Devaswom’s Institute of Mural Painting and the Sree Sankaracharya University have immensely contributed to the revival of this art form.
Specialities of Kerala Murals
Mural paintings usually depict deities and characters from Hindu mythology and traditionally uses only five colours: red, yellow green, black and white which are extracted from various plants or soil. This means that the colours are natural and this art form does not use synthetic or artificial colours. The colours represent certain characters and emotions in these kinds of paintings. The eyes of the characters are always painted last, and once that is done, the painting is considered divine and no further changes are made.
Kerala Mural Art Today
Modern day requirements have brought certain changes to mural art. The art form that was painted on walls required several stages of preparation, is now on canvas using acrylic paints and very often the colours are mixed and used. Mural art requires lot of fine art work and delicate strokes, thus making it a time-consuming art form. As a corollary, they are relatively expensive too.
References:
Nayar, T.S. et al. (1999), Uses of plants and plant products in traditional Indian mural paintings, Economic Botany (p.53)
Mini, P.V. et al. (2010), Preparation techniques of pigments for traditional mural paintings, Indian Journal of Traditional Knowledge (p.9)
Contribution by: Leela Gopinath