Create, Sustain & Destroy: December 2023

This compilation is a bird’s eye view on the ancient Indian craft called Tanjore Painting. This article is a brief study of the techniques, materials used and also it contains pictures of the best specimens of 20th century Tanjore paintings.

We have tried to augment every important step in the sequence of traditional Tanjore art by way of detailed pictures. We have included an array of excellent Tanjore outline drawings which are generally meant for tracing on the plank and upon which the divine subjects are later painted and gemstones and gold foil is fixed.

The vital inputs on this craft have been obtained from my friend Mr. K K Ravichandhiran, Chennai. (mobile: +91 94442 71275) who is a reputed Tanjore art master craftsman. Mr Ravichandhiran is a disciple of a guru Kalaimamani Venkatesa Raja belonging to a lineage of court painters. Also the pictures included have been specially created by him. We are indebted to Mr. Dokka Srinivasu, Kakinada for sharing his valuable collection of books with me and also for his patronage extended by purchasing lots of artifacts and Tanjore paintings from me for his collection.

We hope that both lay persons and serious aspirants who wish to gain expertise in this craft will find our blog useful and we genuinely hope that this small effort of ours would act as impetus to the readers for
further learning in the realm of great Indian art.

A Brief History

Tanjore is an anglicised form of the ancient Indian city Thanjavur where the River Cauvery flows. The renowned Brihadeswara temple constructed by Raja Raja Chola I (1010 AD) which is a repository of ancient Chola murals is situated here. Scholars have eulogised this grand edifice to be the watermark for Chola art and this monument is undeniably an architectural marvel.

While most historians prefer to call Tanjore art is an off-shoot of Nayak paintings (circa 1600-1800 AD) which adorned the walls of many temples in the Southern India, It is indisputable that this art form had its origin from Andhra Desa (like Kalmakari) which gradually moved to Tanjore Maratha court by the itinerant workmen who eventually lost patronage on the Deccan regions. This school of art attained the stage of efflorescence under the patronage of Maratha kings at the city of Tanjore. Hence the eponymous name, Tanjore Art.

The artists of the yore practiced Tanjore painting on various materials like wooden panels, ivory, mica and on glass. The traditional subjects were royal portraits, Gods, Hindu myths, nobles of the court, musicians, dancers and battle scenes. They used pure gold foil and precious stones to embellish the paintings. The white colour was obtained from oyster shell, binding substances were resins from the trees and other colours were mineral pigments, grounded from the rocks.

Tanjore art is a concoction of Indian and western drawing influences in a judicious way. The Sensitive connoisseur could easily detect the compositions are influenced by the British company paintings; French and Dutch art, apart from the local Indo-Persian sources.

Mysore paintings and Tanjore paintings are almost identical twins. They are stylistically similar, however in Mysore school of paintings, reliefs are much lower and their traditional recipes for the plank preparations are slightly different.

Tanjore Art- at the Present days

The production of exquisitely made Tanjore paintings on glass and on wooden panels is still in vogue today. The 20th century artists, having lost the patronage from kings and nobles continue this difficult art by making pictures of divinity majorly to be used as pooja items or pictures in the home altars. The subjects based on Hindu mythology or images from the Hindu pantheon of Gods dominate the Tanjore art. The subjects from the non-Hindu faith and secular themes are indeed a rarity. The Tanjore paintings are made in various sizes, from wall-sized picture panel to pocket-sized painting to suit the budget of every customer.

The craftsmen’s major support in the present day market is from the interior designers, architects, foreign tourists, Indian expats and the handicraft emporia apart from the Indian households who use them for worship.

Technique:

I am reproducing below passage borrowed from the book "Tanjore Paintings-A chapter in Indian History by N S Ramasami" which clearly elucidates the technique as followed by the craftsmen in early 19 th century

"He said that he usually paints on jack wood. on it is imposed cloth or paper, sometimes he works directly on wood. The cloth is unbleached handloom. paper or cloth is affixed to the wooden surface with a substance made of a kind of white lime and glue. then the outlines are drawn. most of the artists we met professed that they drew outlines freehand. They would not admit they made tracings, obviously believing that to do so was somewhat disreputable.(now Photostat template)

The colours used are nowadays chemical ones, but in the past only natural ones were applied. The modern artists has no objection to them; in fact he prefers them on the ground that they are far easier and cheaper to procure.

All the artists whom we we met agreed that Tanjore painting takes much time to produce. It involves infinite labour. But the estimates of time varied from artist to artist.one said that he needed about two weeks, another just 5 days a third that it depended on weather, quicker in summer when paint could dry out sooner than in other months, a fourth said that, if patron demanded quick results, they could be produced to order."

A Visual Journey into the procedure of this craft:

Contemporary Experiments

As a part of modern design interventions, several practitioners have even used Tanjore paintings or the motifs therefrom to make trendy utility objects like jewelry boxes, pen stands, flower vases, wall clocks, serving trays used in pantry and variety of corporate gifts.

Modern day saints like Sai baba, Raghavendra Swamy, Chandrasekharendra Saraswati et al have also been brought into the Tanjore repertoire. The commission from devotees to make pictures of numerous religious personages and pontiffs of the mutts offers the artisans sustainable business from India and abroad.

Few artists have innovatively designed wooden teapoys with Tanjore art designs on the top collaborating with the help of skillful wood working artisans.

Extremely high reliefs or embossed paintings resembling three-dimensional sculptures are also being introduced lately in the Tanjore art by the craftsmen.

These experiments are really path breaking and we can hope that the workers would be rewarded aptly for their creativity and perspiration.

Decadence in Modern times

There are several factors for the decadence to this great art. The notable reasons are:

Lack of effective training programmes / Loss of guru-shishya parampara in the present era.
Near death of drawing skills among the painters and over-dependence on photocopied templates -outline drawing made by others and freely circulated within trade.
Lack of active interest on the Hindu myths by the workers and their incapacity to interpret them as traditional paintings.
Unwarranted intrusion of western calendar art/Ravi Varma art /magazine art and the temptation to imitate the photographical realism.
The most practitioners are semi-literates and are from poorer section of the society who depends on agents to sell their wares. The greedy middle-men’s thrust to make these marvelous and painstakingly made creations to the level of cheap souvenirs thereby inducting them to use inferior quality art supplies and promoting them as purely as bric-a-brac trade.
The approach of mass-production.
Division of Labour: While the expert artists are empowered to do the crucial “finishing” work, lesser important works are assigned to inferior workmen-especially raising the embossed areas, fixing the gold foil etc. which many times turns out to be atrociously unpleasant.
Nepotism: Hobbyists and raw amateurs who make lackluster pieces of this craft most often times get unfair patronage from the crafts shops (private and govt.-owned) thereby diluting the value of original art that has been done by a seasoned craftsmen.

Tips for the Revival:

(1)    Notwithstanding to the fact, ours is a developing country which has enormous budgetary constraints on the cultural front. Both the bureaucrats in the Govt. sector and the craft Ngo’s should work diligently for the good of the craftsmen and for the development of the craft. They must be exemplary, profess the noble work, for which their institutions have been founded.
(2)    The craftsmen should learn standard business practices, stick to deadlines and adapt themselves to make global transactions. Craftsmen should maintain high ethical standards and prioritize honesty and integrity in all their actions and interactions.
(3)    Craftsmen to keep abreast with information technology/ social media marketing.

A Picture Gallery

Even today there are hundreds of artists practicing this genre of art in various parts of India despite their trials and tribulations, passing the baton forward to the next generation. They continue to tread in a difficult path, keeping their creations within the rigid norms of traditionalism and simultaneously resisting the onslaught of commercialism and new age media.

With little or no exposure from the media; and with little or no funding from the Government or corporates the artists with unfettered devotion are keen and ready to act to preserve their intangible heritage of our nation to the posterity. Therefore let us join together to act in the best interest of these indigenous artists!!

Thank you for visiting, We shall be glad to receive your feedback

KSV
New Years Day-2024

🅫 You may contact Mr. K K Ravichandhiran directly for the commercial enquiries

A recent Self Portrait.

Mr. Surya Rao Pokkuluri is an octogenarian, an energetic, jubilant person, cheerful individual and is often labelled as multi-talented by his friends and relatives. He is my uncle, who incidentally shares the name of my great grandfather. He is an artist, singer, and flutist all rolled into one.

There has been a common convention that people in the applied arts, design, and architecture can enter the art realm and gain immense reputation as fine art practitioners. Surya Rao garu is no different. He worked as an engineer in Panchayat Raj projects in the undivided Andhra Pradesh state. He is a civil draftsman by training and profession. He has overseen a number of small and big developmental projects in and around Visakhapatnam zone. It may not be entirely out of context to mention the names of the illustrious watercolourist late Mr. R. Krishna Rao and the famous abstract painter late Mr. Achuthan Kudallur started their careers as architectural draftsmen who later transformed into the successful sought after creative artists.

As a young boy, Surya Rao garu learned sketching, drawing, and other forms of illustration from my late grandfather, Mr. K Subrahmanyam, who also happens to be his maternal uncle. Young Surya Rao could handle pen and ink illustrations with a dip pen. He could effectively draw with stumping powders, both of which are now obsolete. He even learned the basics of Carnatic music through the bamboo flute from him.

Diwan of Pithapuram, drawn at age of 17.

Post-retirement, Surya Rao garu's love for the visual arts and music found a path of
resurgence. Hitherto subdued skills owing to the commitments of mundane life evolved and developed to its full potential.

He received mentoring in music from an efficient teacher and was successful in fine-tuning his skills. Similarly, in the domain of art, he had a brief interaction with a veteran commercial portrait painter in Hyderabad and effectively gained inputs for the furtherance of his skills.

He has done countless portraits so far using coloured pencils as his favourite medium. His subjects are mainly portraits of his friends, neighbours, relatives, and other acquaintances. His "modus operandi" for drawing a portrait, which even youngsters aren't capable of imitating, is as follows: he captures the subjects through his smartphone and meticulously recreates them on paper. He uses the grid lines method, which he learned during his earlier days as a young student. It is an acid test for the artist to accurately bring out the likeness of the subjects through facial expressions and other parts of the face. Strict realism must conform to the photograph taken as a reference, and it is a painstaking affair to execute. Extreme patience is necessary to render realistic portraits compared to the modern-day "loosened up" style. One should not overstep any rules for any cause.

(For viewing assortment of his painstakingly done portraits, scroll down to find after this brief write up.)

Advanced age and minor physical hardships don't impair him from doing the strenuous work. I presume that he gives away these wonderful creations as gifts to his models. He is tech-savvy and takes pains to circulate his unending stream of sketches to his fans throughout the world via WhatsApp. Viewing them is a rewarding experience for amateur artists, professionals, and laypersons. Additionally, I reckon the feedback he receives from his friends (virtual or otherwise) might also help stimulate his desire to work more.

He and his wife live in a small cosy apartment in Hyderabad. His wife, Mrs. Lakshmi Pokkuluri garu, plays the Veena (a stringed instrument) as a pastime and she is an avid music enthusiast. He has a daughter and two sons. His daughter lives in Hyderabad, and both sons live in Melbourne. He often shuttles between India and Australia and spends quality time with grandchildren and their offspring. He gains a lot of exposure to globally accepted customs and various facets of multiculturalism prevalent in other parts of the world through his tours. On several occasions, he would send me video clips of the buildings, vast supermarkets, local flora, and shops where they sell Indian crafts, artifacts and edible commodities like fruits ,vegetables sourced from far off countries. These videos are a sheer delight to me as a person who hasn't traveled anywhere north of Vindhyas.

While Surya Rao garu continues to create masterpiece after masterpiece effortlessly, I wish that young artists, especially Gen Z, make noteworthy contributions to the art community by actively creating prolific art output consistently and at all times, taking impetus from Surya Rao garu's captivating compositions.

From the large corpus of works that he has made, I wish his financially comfortable children bring out a coffee table book or alternatively arrange a solo art show of their dad at a prominent gallery.

"Art is the heartbeat of humanity."

Srinivas Krothapally

(X'mas-2023)