Tanjore Painting and Its History

Tanjore Painting and Its History

Tanjore painting are one of the ancient arts of India. It is a very passionate and beautiful art and believed to affect our life if we hung it in our homes.

But now very few people are concern and known about these paintings and in a very state of extinction.

If we search history the first and the oldest Tanjore painting is said to be approximately 40,000 years old. For the first time in India these painting are made in Tamil Nadu in a city named Thanjavur and to design the painting they said to use precious original stones and foils of gold. For the painting to have bright colour and longer life oil paints is used by the painters and for these reason the quality of the paintings have manage to remain the same till today.

In Tanjore painting two types of design are mainly used and they are Chettinad and Mysore designs.

1. Chettinad Tanjore paintings: In Tanjore painting this type of design is originated in Thanjavur a city of Tamil Nadu, India. In this design you can find thick lines, bold colours and appropriate shapes are designed with keeping balance of every line of the painting. Without the question of ‘out of shape’ in the painting very appropriate colour are used. It is said that this painting is very lively around 1600 A.D.

2. Mysore Tanjore paintings:

This

type of design in Tanjore painting is originated in Mysore, a city in Karnataka and said to speak the life around the time 2nd century B.C. to 7th century A.D. The speciality of this kind of paintings is they are mostly of graceful delineation of figures such as various gods and goddesses of Hindu mythology and they have very delicate lines, intricate brush strokes and use bright vegetable colour and lustrous gold leaf.

Tanjore paintings are very different from other form of painting. They are very unique and authentic and said to bring a special type of energy to home if we bring them. To fill in as ornaments and clothing of the figurines which are mostly Hindu Mythological gods like Shiva, Vishnu, Lakshmi, Parvathi, Krishna and Saraswathi Tanjore paintings lots of precious stones and foils of pure gold is used.

With the time everything needs to change a little to manage its surviving and even Tanjore painting is no exception. To keep up with the modern time artisans are forced to do some change in Tanjore paintings.

Even though some changes are made but the basic of the paintings are remain the same, only the material used in it is changed a little.