Mural Paintings

In common with the rest of the country, Kerala has very powerful examples of cultural sign of heritage and tradition. Art forms often showed the great tradition of the aesthetics of philosophical and intuitive world of the artists. More than representation of what one can see outside it was always the feel of the thought that was important for Indian mind. Sculpture was considered to be the highest example of modelling. Painting was to suggest volume by articulating the two dimensional quality of the surface. The linear form in painting was given three dimensional effect by shading,hatching etc., to make the lines look like insinuated volume.

lndian tradition of painting could be traced back to pre-historic period; but it became mature in every sense during the Satavahana rule. The earliest caves in Ajanta were carved during that period (2.BC – 2.AD). From Ajanta the painting tradition spread to other places; and Kerala became a prominent centre where a unique style of murals, derived from Ajanta, could be seen from as early as the eight century AD. Kanchipuram. Sittanavasal, Badami, Thanjavur, Vijayanagar and Kerala were some of the art centres where mural painting tradition flourished as there were many temples being decorated with wall paintings. Very few documentary evidences are there to prove the date of the beginning of mural panting in Kerala. But from known sources it could be seen that the first example was in Thirunandikara in the 8th /9th centuryAD.

The temple architecture of Kerala has three phases in its evolutionary process – early 800 — 1000 AD, middle 1001 – 1300AD,  late 1301- 1600AD.

A mature balance of architectural and pictorial space was achieved in Kerala by the 16th century and mural painting with its stylistic uniqueness showed an aesthetics which has great correspondence with the performing arts of Kerala namely koodiyattam, Krishnanattam and Kathakali . Confined to the temple walls Kerala mural tradition did not get any recognition outside. The caste system and the restricted entry into temple also were the reasons for it being ignored.

After the fire tragedy in Guruvayoor Temple in 1970 the authorities wanted to renovate/repaint the damaged pictures, but very few people could do that. To save this tradition an institute was established in Guruvayoor by the Devaswam in 1989 and now a number of students who studied there made this style popular across India and abroad. As a number of secular walls also were decorated with paintings of this style, new themes also became inevitable. Paintings on portable mediums reached many places.