Kerala mural paintings

#GS 01 Art and Culture

Mural Paintings are large scale paintings made on the walls of caves and palaces.
The earliest evidence of mural paintings that can be found are the beautiful frescoes painted on the caves of Ajanta and Ellora, the Bagh caves and Sittanvasal cave.
The technique and process of making wall paintings in India is based on the teachings in Vishnudharamotaram, a Sanskrit text of the 5th/6th century CE.
Kerala painters evolved a pictorial language and technique of their own while discriminately adopting certain stylistic elements from Nayaka and Vijayanagara schools.
More than sixty sites have been discovered as having mural paintings which include three palaces viz, Dutch palace in Kochi, Krishnapuram palace in Kayamkulam and Padmanabhapuram palace.
Many temples, palaces, and churches in Kerala houses mural paintings which are inspired by stories, legends, and episodes from the Puranas, epics, and folklore dating back to ancient times.
Though most of the murals depicts stories from the Mahabharata, Ramayana, and The Gita, some other texts such as 15^th Century Tantra samuchhaya on temple architecture by Narayana, 16^th Century Shilparatna by Sreekumara, Kumara-sambhava by Kalidasa are also depicted in these paintings.

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