Kishangarh Painting, Art Inspired by Religion of Love

Faith Mysticism

oi-Staff

By Staff

Thursday, June 4, 2009, 11:03

All great art owes to the inspiration of religion. When spring comes, trees burst into blossoms. What spring is to the trees, inspiration is to human race. All creative art activity, such as architecture, sculpture, painting, poetry and music is an expression of spiritual joy felt by sensitive people.

A great art was born in the wake of Buddhism. The cave temples of Ajanta were decorated with paintings of sublime beauty. In Central Asia, China and Japan, Buddhism sparked a great art movement which inspired the construction of beautiful pagodas, gardens of peace and calm, poetry and painting. In Java, Buddhism inspired the construction of the greatest sculpture gallery of the world, the temple of Borobuddhur.

The inspiration of Islam gave birth to the noble mosques of Cordoba, Cairo, Baghdad and Isfahan. Their graceful domes and minarets decorated with tiles of great beauty, commune with heaven and indicate how love for beauty burst out, even from an austere faith which forbade sculpture and painting (when made for worship purpose).

Christianity inspired the sublime architecture of the Gothic cathedrals of Chartres, Amiens, Rhiems and Milan, and the great paintings of Leonardo da Vinci, Raphael, Giotto and Coreggio.

Similarly the beautiful religion of Love in India, that is the cult of Sri Krishna as well as Sufi influences inspired the great paintings of Kishangarh.

Founded in 1597, the town of Kishnagarh is famous for its finest school of miniature paintings in the 18th century. Kishnagarh is only 27km away from Ajmer which is the famous town where the celebrated Sufi saint Khwaja Mu'inuddin Chishti's body is laid to final rest and hence a sacred site of pilgrimage. What makes the miniature paintings of Kishangarh distinct is that they are specially influenced by two Religious School of Love: Vaishnavite and Sufism.

According to many historians, Indian paintings began in the caves of Ajanta and evolved into the Pala and Jain styles. During early sixteenth century the Persian infusion came into play. Under the patronage of Akbar there was a true cultural cross-fertilization between the Persian techniques and India tradition, and a style of painting known as Mughal, which is truly Indian in spirit, evolved.

The beauty of Rajput paintings (Kishnagarh belongs to such school) is greatly inspired by the love of Radha, Krishna and the mythical human lover between them transcend itself to become divine love.

A. K. Coomaraswamy, mystic, scholar and historian while commenting on Kishangarh painting wrote: "Such paintings must always intimately appeal to those who are attracted by Indian life and thought, and above all to those who realize that they form the last visual records of an order that is rapidly passing away never to return.