Ramayana in Pahari Miniature Painting

Author(s): Jutta Jain
Publisher: L D Indology Ahmedabad

Page 14

The Rāmāyana In Pahari Miniature Painting
swift, imaginative and powerful style. Very interesting examples of this type are the paintings of the Citrakathi, the 'tellers of illustrated stories', from Maharashtra.
On Pahari painting
From a distant view it seems that the painters of the Pahari area were mainly engaged in illustrating themes connected with the Great Goddess, the Devi; episodes from the Krsna legend; lyrical and romantic poems; and historical persons or incidents. However, the illustrations of the Rāmāyaṇa, too, played an equally important role in Pahari painting.
Under the term “Pahari painting' all the creations of the painters in the Pahari region are grouped together. They belong to the extensive school of Rajput painting, because all the Pahari states were ruled to a major part by Rajput clans, as it was also the case in large areas of Rajasthan, Gujarat and Central India.
The Pahari area (i. e. 'the mountain area'), also called Punjab Hills or Hill States, is situated in the north-western corner of Nothern India, adjoining the Panjab and Gangetic plains in the South and the Himalayan mountains in the North. Formerly there were about 34 Pahari kingdoms of more or less importance. The one noted for fine art activities and of art-historical interest were Basohli, Jammu, Guler, Nurpur, Chamba, Kulu, Kangra, Mandi, and Garhwal, for example. None of these states rose to the level of supra-regional powers, but the kings, even of the smaller states, were often patrons and lovers of art, sophisticated in their taste and appreciation. Many of the kings employed master artists in their royal ateliers. The creations of art in many of these states are exceptionally fine in spirit and execution. The styles found in Pahari painting range from wild and striking illustrations distinguished by a lack of naturalism, distortion of faces and a religious significance similar to that of metal icons, to extremely delicate, charming and naturalistic renderings of romantic, mythological and historical themes.
Ananda K, Coomaraswamy was the first scholar to discover this school of Rajput paintings in the North-West and to realise that it had existed independently of other Rajput schools of Rajasthan and Central India. He classified the Pahari miniatures into two groups, the Southern group around the area of Kangra-Garhwal
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