The traditional techniques and methods of mural decoration in Rajasthan are of particular interest to the students of Indian mural painting. After Ajanta and Bagh the link of mural paintings in India is not traced sufficiently with information and data. The continuity of this tradition of the art of mural decoration, after Ajanta and Bagh, though in its very late phase, is seen in the wall paintings of Rajasthan.
The technique of painting employed in Rajasthani murals is popularly known as Jaipur Process. It is a process of painting on wet-surface of the wall-plaster. This process of painting on wet-plaster was known and practised in early times in Italy, Egypt, India, Tibet, China, Korea, Japan and other countries. The techniques employed in all these countries were of 'fresco buono' and 'fresco-secco' and 'tempera' in egg or other adhesives like glues from Babul trees or animal hides. Though the techniques were same, the results differed according to the clime, time and the mood of the artist.
In India, Rajasthan is the place where the tradition of paintings on walls is still noticed in the old fort palaces, private Havelis and temples, though at present it is deteriorated in the hands of 'chiteras'. Roughly the period of these murals can be placed between two to three hundred years.
Rajasthan is an arid area. The climatic condition has helped to preserve the mu-ral paintings in this Maru Bhumi. The murals of Bundi, Kota, Nagaur, Jaipur, Galta, Pundarikji's Haveli and other remote places in Rajasthan are remarkable and they give an insight into the art and technique of Rajasthani mural painting. Stylistically these paintings differ, but so far as the subject matter is concerned, they evince uniform interest. The Krishna-Lila episodes, and legends from Ramayana, love-scenes, royal processions, hunting scenes, battle scenes, seasons and seasonal festivals, moonlit music parties on the marble terraces, secular scenes, animal fights and ladies' pastimes etc. are the main themes for the artist's brush.
In this monograph the murals of the above cited places, with particular reference to an excellent nucleus of murals of the Nagaur Fort, are studied in ritu and noted in detail-technically, stylistically and thematically. The forty-eight photographs of the murals of the sites mentioned above are reproduced here with detailed annotations and connotations in black-and-white.
Two coloured-plates and one line drawing for the Jacket of the book and some other drawings showing the detailed studies of the frescoes are also added.
The other murals which have been described in the text are not reproduced here. But they convey intrinsic charm and beauty of these dilapidating and vanishing pictorial presentation.
I am grateful to Mr. Kartik Shukla who accompanied me in my research tour to these historically and artistically rich places to photograph these murals.
I am also thankful to the University Grant Commission, Delhi, for awarding the most coveted Emeritus Professorship to carry out the research, when I was the Head of the Department of Painting at Banasthali Vidyapith, Rajasthan.
I am also grateful to the L. D. Institute of Indology for publishing my dissertation on the frescoes of Rajasthan with particular reference to the Nagaur Frescoes. 1 am equally indebted to Dalsukhbhai Malvania and Naginbhai Shah, Adviser and Director respectively of the Institute, for their valuable suggetions regarding the fine-production and its get-up.
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