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Photo: K. V. Srinivasan

ARTISTIC CAUSE Deborah Thiagarajan, Padmavathy Anantram and P. S. Sriraman at the press conference

“Tamil Nadu has the largest number of ancient temple murals in the country,” said Deborah Thiagarajan, president of the Madras Craft Foundation and DakshinaChitra. “At least 50 per cent of them have already disappeared, and the remaining is deteriorating at a rapid pace.”

She was speaking at a press conference announcing an international seminar and public forum on this vulnerable art form that will be held from January 23 to 27 at DakshinaChitra.

“These murals express the religious, political, social views of their age, and have a tremendous artistic value,” said Deborah. “We’re trying to bring all the forces together to help us preserve them and their painting tradition.”

The seminar, titled “Painting narratives: mural painting in the 13th – 19th centuries” (organised under the directorship of Dr. David Shulman of the Hebrew University) will bring together anthropologists, art historians, conservationists, artists and communicators from all over the world to explore the study, documentation, interpretation and conservation of these paintings.

“We need to create a large force of people with the technical skills to conserve and preserve these paintings,” said archeologist P.S. Sriraman, who will be presenting a paper on the Chola murals at the seminar.

The Institute of Mural Painting, Guruvayur Devaswom, Guruvayur is one of the only institutes in the country that trains students skilled at preserving these old murals. “We have renovated the murals at six or seven temples in Kerala, but most of the temple authorities are not interested because it takes very long,” said Krishna Kumar, the Principal and chief instructor at the institute.

The conservation of these paintings is what the public forum “Content, conservation, communication” (organised in association with the Indian National Trust for Art and Cultural Heritage, the Indian Council for Conservation Institutes, and the Centre for Plants, People and Ecosystems, Chennai) will be specifically addressing on January 27 at Hotel GRT Grand Days. That will include ways to create awareness among owners, trustees and high priests of the temples as well as the general public about the heritage value of these murals.

“We’re fighting the prevalent concept that when something decays, it needs to be replaced with something new,” said Deborah. “We want to show that the old is new and exciting once renovated.”

The seminar and forum will be complemented by Hastakala, a series of four exhibitions celebrating the visual arts traditions of South India at DakshinaChitra all through January. “Singing scrolls” is an exhibition of the Cherial paintings of Andhra Pradesh that were used as visual aids to the storytelling tradition of the Telangana region, “Bejeweled Gods and Kings” of Tanjore paintings (curated in association with Ranvir Shah of the Prakriti Foundation), “Heroes, Villains and Clowns” of leather puppets from all four states, and “Earthly Forms, Divine Traditions” of the legacy of Kalamkari.

You’ll also get a feel of how these art works are created with live demonstration of Kalamkari and the painting tradition of Tanjore, Cherial, Mysore and Kerala murals by master craftsmen, as well as performances of shadow puppetry over the weekends.

“The preservation of the murals is going to be an uphill task,” admitted Deborah. “I wish I’d held this seminar 15 years ago — then maybe we could have saved the Meenakshi Temple paintings.”

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