Scribd Logo
Upload

Welcome to Scribd!

  • 388 views

    Art and Design Aesthetics: Cave Paintings of Sittanavasal (Tamil Nadu, India)

    Uploaded by

    ROMILA TAHSEEN
    The Sittanavasal Cave in Tamil Nadu contains notable frescoes from the 7th century depicting figures from Jain mythology. The cave was a Jain monastery or temple created between the 1st century BC and 10th century AD. The ceiling paintings inside the cave illustrate a lotus pond scene with images of men, animals, flowers, and birds. Though damaged, the remaining frescoes preserved on columns and ceilings include detailed pictures of elephants, buffaloes, fish, and dancing girls. The paintings were created using fresco-secco technique by applying mineral pigments onto a thin lime plaster surface.

    Copyright:

    © All Rights Reserved
    Download as PPTX, PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd

    Art and Design Aesthetics: Cave Paintings of Sittanavasal (Tamil Nadu, India)

    Uploaded by

    ROMILA TAHSEEN
    388 views12 pages
    The Sittanavasal Cave in Tamil Nadu contains notable frescoes from the 7th century depicting figures from Jain mythology. The cave was a Jain monastery or temple created between the 1st century BC and 10th century AD. The ceiling paintings inside the cave illustrate a lotus pond scene with images of men, animals, flowers, and birds. Though damaged, the remaining frescoes preserved on columns and ceilings include detailed pictures of elephants, buffaloes, fish, and dancing girls. The paintings were created using fresco-secco technique by applying mineral pigments onto a thin lime plaster surface.

    Original Description:

    cave painting of tamil nadu

    Original Title

    cave painting

    Copyright

    © © All Rights Reserved

    Available Formats

    PPTX, PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd

    Did you find this document useful?

    Is this content inappropriate?

    The Sittanavasal Cave in Tamil Nadu contains notable frescoes from the 7th century depicting figures from Jain mythology. The cave was a Jain monastery or temple created between the 1st century BC and 10th century AD. The ceiling paintings inside the cave illustrate a lotus pond scene with images of men, animals, flowers, and birds. Though damaged, the remaining frescoes preserved on columns and ceilings include detailed pictures of elephants, buffaloes, fish, and dancing girls. The paintings were created using fresco-secco technique by applying mineral pigments onto a thin lime plaster surface.

    Copyright:

    © All Rights Reserved
    Download as PPTX, PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd
    Download as pptx, pdf, or txt
    388 views12 pages

    Art and Design Aesthetics: Cave Paintings of Sittanavasal (Tamil Nadu, India)

    Uploaded by

    ROMILA TAHSEEN
    The Sittanavasal Cave in Tamil Nadu contains notable frescoes from the 7th century depicting figures from Jain mythology. The cave was a Jain monastery or temple created between the 1st century BC and 10th century AD. The ceiling paintings inside the cave illustrate a lotus pond scene with images of men, animals, flowers, and birds. Though damaged, the remaining frescoes preserved on columns and ceilings include detailed pictures of elephants, buffaloes, fish, and dancing girls. The paintings were created using fresco-secco technique by applying mineral pigments onto a thin lime plaster surface.

    Copyright:

    © All Rights Reserved
    Download as PPTX, PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd
    Download as pptx, pdf, or txt
    of 12

    ART AND DESIGN

    AESTHETICS
    CAVE PAINTINGS OF SITTANAVASAL (TAMIL NADU, INDIA)
    ABOUT THE CAVES
     Sittanavasal Cave (also, Arivar Koil) is a 2nd-century Jain complex of caves in
    Sittanavasal village in Pudukottai district of Tamil Nadu, India.
     The cave is a rock-cut monastery or temple. Created by Jains, it is called the
    Arivar Koil, and is a rock cut cave temple of the Arihants. It contains remnants of
    notable frescoes from the 7th century.
     The murals have been painted with vegetable and mineral dyes in black, green,
    yellow, orange, blue, and white. Paintings have been created by applying colours
    over a thin wet surface of lime plaster.
    HISTORY
     While the Sittanavasal village is dated from 1st century BC to 10th century AD when Jainism flourished in
    Pudukkottai, the Temple-cave was initially dated to Pallava King Mahendravarman I (580–630 AD) prior to his
    conversion from Jainism to Hinduism.
     The Jain beds on the hill top is attributed to the Jain era pilgrimage centre which lasted till the 9th century
    AD.
     There are two publications in the 20th century which brought to light these monuments in particular: one in
    1916, in the book "General History of the Pudukkottai State" by S. Radhakrishna Iyer, a historian, but only
    known regionally; and the other by Jouveau-Dubreuil and Gopinatha Rao, iconographers who worked together
    and brought out a "Monograph on Sittannavasal", in 1920, which brought it to limelight among archaeologists
    worldwide.
     The cleaning of the painting was undertaken in 1942 by Dr. S. Paramasivan and K. R. Srinivasan when they
    observed a patch of old painting of conventional carpet design superimposed by a new layer of painting. The
    superimposed layer of painting has been surmised as that done Ilan-Gautaman, whose name is also inscribed.
    [3] The temple is maintained and administered by the Archaeological Survey of India as a ticketed monument
    CEILING PAINTINGS INSIDE THE
    CAVE
     The ceilings have depiction of a lotus tank with natural looking images of men, animals,
    flowers, birds and fishes representing the faith of Jainism. The pillars are also carved with
    dancing girl and the king and the queen.
     The mural exhibits a water tank or khatika-bhumi which is shown with the tank made of tiles
    filled with lotus flowers and surrounded by bhavyas ("the faithful"), elephants, fishes, one fish
    shown as jumping out of water, pillars with figurines of Pandya king Srimara Srivallabha (9th
    century AD) and his queen offering reverence to Ilam Gautaman, an acharya of Madura who
    created these paintings.
     The study done by an artist on the depictions of the ceiling painting panel reveals: 3 birds, a
    man in loin cloth plucking flowers and the man is shown with a lily on right hand and lotuses on
    left hand, an elephant and fishes swimming, bird’s eye on the top left corner.
    FRESCOES OF THE CAVE
     Though severely damaged due to vandalism, the remaining Frescoes have been preserved on
    the top parts of columns and ceilings inside the temple. Many of them are typical of the 9th
    century Pandyan period and include detailed pictures of elephants, buffaloes, fish, geese, Jains
    gathering lotuses from a pond and dancing girls.
     These frescoes are considered to be some of the best frescoes of medieval India next to
    frescoes of Ajanta Caves and Bagh Caves.
    MAKING OF THESE PAINTINGS
     Painting of the Sittanvasal Caves were analysed to establish the technique and the material
    used to make the. Analysing a painting of a lotus pond in the ardhamantpam, it has been
    inferred that they are made with Fresco-secco, techniques made over rough stone using rough
    plaster of 2.5 millimetres (0.098 in) thickness made of lime mortar and sand with minor
    impurities, applying 0.5 millimetres (0.020 in) thick lime wash of fine lime water when the rough
    lime plaster is still rough.
    The pigments used are composed of white made from lime, black made from wood charcoal or
    lamp black, yellow from yellow ochre, red from red ochre, blue from ultramarine\lapis lazuli,
    and green from terre verte. Pigments of permanent mineral colours (not vegetable colours as
    reported on the display plaque at the site by ASI) were applied over dry plaster surfaces without
    any adhesive grove; the process involved a chemical reaction of lime water which absorbed
    oxygenin the air and getting converted by a carbonisation process into insoluble calcium
    carbonate, which enabled the pigments to adhere to the surface.
    CURRENT CONDITION OF THESE
    PAINTINGS
     At the initiative of Pudukkottai State, during 1937–39, the paintings were cleaned, and then
    given a preservative coating. Also, the damaged portions of the plastering were injected with
    cementing material and the paintings were also retouched.
    The condition of paintings are deteriorating.
    THANK YOU
    PRESENTATION BY- ROMILA TAHSEEN I

    You might also like