TiruppudaiMarudur
Paintings by Prof Baluswamy
On May 1, 2016 I attended the launch of a Tamil book titled “Chitrakoodam – Tiruppudai Marudur paintings.” The book was authored by Prof Baluswamy of Madras Chrisitian College, Tambaram, whose earlier books “Arjunan Tapasu” and “Krishna Mandapam” also about famous monuments in Mamallapuram are outstanding works of research. Speakers included botany professor Dayanandan of MCC, artists Trotsky Marudu, Smt of Hindu Religious and Charitable Endowments department, photographer Narasimhan and conservator and documentary film-maker MV Baskar. These are notes from their talks which I posted on Facebook, on that day, which I have now copied and edited for this blog. Prof Baluswamy himself delivered a vote of thanks, which I don’t seem to have taken notes for. The event was the Goethe Insitute auditorium, Rutland Gate, Nungambakkam, Madras.
I first heard of these paintings at the Tiruppudaimarudur temple from Prof Baluswamy himself at the 2012 Tamil Heritage Trust Pechu Kacheri on Paintings of India, which was held in the Tatvaaloka auditoirum, Eldams Road, Teynampet in Chennai. These paintings and the unusual military history they recorded were part of his talk which was about Nayak era paintings of the Tanjavur and Madurai Nayaks. It was recorded along with other talks at the Pechu Kacheri but none of these have been yet edited and made available to the public.
The book was only released last year and was available at the Chennai Book Fair
in Nandanam. An earlier book on these paintings by Dr Kannan director of
Chennai Egmore museum, was presented to me as a gift around this time, for my
talk and guided tour about the Amaravati gallery of the Egmore museum, by the
then Director, Dr Kavita Ramu. Dr Kannan who reshaped the Amaravati gallery also
undertook a restoration/renovation effort of these murals and has recorded them
in his book.
The notes from the talks at the 2016 book launch follow:
Prof Dayanandan, MCC
Lawrence Surendra played a major role in developing this book, "Chitrakoodam - Tiruppudaimarudur Oviyangal", by using MCC as a powerful resource to research and collate.
Baluswamy is our treasure. That others share him invokes jealousy and pride. We had a great asan at MCC in 60s Gift Siromoney, who pulled all of us into several fields. we thought he had reached a peak with Arjuna's penance, but he has breached new barriers with this book on Tiruppudaimarudur paintings. He has a wide variety of knowledge in depth.
Nagaswamy threw a bomb that Rajasimha built everything in Mallai. Gift Siromoney measured all sculptures with scales. We discovered that no male was depicted before 720. Baluswamy went beyond all this. He brought whole new theories to scholarship on Mallai. Using biology, sculpture sense etc. He discovered that the painting in Tiruppudaimarudur depicted the Tamraparni battle between Vijayanagar and Travancore. After the advent of Portuguese. I discussed Columbian exchange with Baluswamy, after which pineapple potato chili etc entered India.
Sangam Era marudu tree would have been lagerstomia. Sthala trees are not more than 200 or 300 years old, opined a botany professor in Madras University.
Baluswamy makes the distinction between mythology and history when teaching. No humans in India before sixty thousand years. So please forget Lemuria etc. When Africans settled the world. The common mother of all living humans lived in Africa 180000 years ago. Based on mitochondrial evidence.
Who ordered the paintings at Tiruppudaimarudur? Did the painters paint what they were ordered to? The book will discuss all these.
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| Panelists and audience - photo by VK Srinivasan |
Trotsky Marudu, artist
I grew up with the Nayak paintings
around poRRamarai tank in Madurai Meenakshi temple. All now eradicated. This
tragedy bothered for a longtime. Western realism combined with Indian artistic
tradition only in the Nayak period. My predecessors like Adimoolam worked
at Weavers Institute. Government photographers captured paintings of Alagar
Koil, Avudaiyar Koil etc and they used those designs in weaving textiles.
Even Adimoolam has not seen the Tiruppudaimarudur paintings. MV Baskar, Sarangan,
myself and Baluswamy had the opportunity to see them after 2000. In 1990s I
could not go past the first level and it was too dark to see these paintings.
After the Danielles, Europe saw India in pictures. Parsi theater gave another
visual perspective to Europeans. Later Ravi Varma printed his own paintings,
made with costumes used by Parsi theater, most of which became popular across
households in India. Marathi cinema 's look influences films of South India films
now, having few Tamil identity. Dadasaheb Phalke Ravi Varma's Contemporary, and
the artists who worked in Bombay film studios determined the look of Telugu and
Tamil cinema. Film arts, calendar art and magazine art became the defining art
of Tamil country (disconnected from the temple art of the Nayak era).
For several decades maps and images have been eradicated from Tamil books as cost cutting measure.
European books for children had
paintings from Egyptian temples and pyramids and much less text. Fourteenth
century venetian art decorated such books about Egypt and even Hollywood
actors. Indian books do such a lousy job. Hyder Ali for example depicts him
practically as a beggar though there are wonderful pictures of him. Sadly Tamil
culture is mostly verbal. We pay poor attention to visual art.
Thadagam published a very visual book and they are doing this with Baluswamy's book on Tiruppudaimarudur. This is a treasure for the world at large not just Tamils.
Smt Kavitha of
HR&CE
Of the thirty eight thousand
temples under HR&CE about fifty temples have paintings like
Tiruppudaimarudur. We have permitted several people to photograph paintings for
scholarly study. Our department is blind to a lot of technology, and have
inadequate in situ scholarly talent. We are now restoring temple paintings.
INTACH restored kuRRalam Chitra Sabha, then another group complained that INTACH
had ruined them by using very bright colors.
There are wooden panels at every
level in Tiruppudaimarudur gopuram. Insect infestation and bats were big
problems. Water seepage is another problem. We used to use cement, then
combination mortar, and now we use lime mortar. We don't touch up the paintings.
In ASI chemists do the job. Our sthapathi said Silpa Sastra shows several
sources of paint including sand and stone colors, not just vegetable dye.
There are PhDs who have published
with no reference to the temple or HR&CE. Why can't you give copies to the
temple and our department??
Please cooperate with us. Don't
have an antagonistic approach. We find it very difficult to find talent for
restoration. A text called "Aalaya nirmana bimba Lakshana" shows us
how to restore temples. Materials die, just preserve the monument, not just the
materials. Expertise is hard to come by. Maintaining thousands of temples have
to be maintain 38,000 temples with income from 2000 temples. It's not our
intention to destroy, we do it out of ignorance.
Or by good intentions to save a
monument or protect public from collapsing roof etc (one such attempt at
Srirangam thayar shrine caused the paintings to crumble).
I hope at least Prof Baluswamy will acknowledge HR&CE
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| Episodes from the live of Gnanasambandar - a slide from a PPT |
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| A painting of Portuguese horse trade |
Photographer Narasimhan - Documenting
the paintings
Our long time dream is getting
fulfilled. I must acknowledge one who has not been acknowledged by other
speakers. Mrs Baluswamy approved all the great expenses involved. Two types of
people visit Baluswamy, those who go to learn and those who go to plagiarize.
Amutharasan came forward to publish
the book. This pre publication is a special effort.
The technology to document was brought to us by Sarangan and Baskar.
Tiruppudaimarudur is a rare temple
to still have original Nayak Era paintings. Most temple paintings have suffered
great change. We have documented Alagar Koil paintings. They are valuable
historical evidence. Baluswamy's effort to understand the paintings has been
phenomenal. Investigating the Tamraparni war took four years. Lots of
discussions with Sanskrit scholars to understand historical narrations of the
war. Retired Supreme Court Justice
Ratnavel Pandyan has been wonderfully helpful in this research.
We held several conferences to
convey the importance to students and public. We ran a workshop at Srirangam
for temple executive officers to our preserve sculptures and paintings.
One of the quite but wonderful
servants of the documentation of this book is Mr Uthraadam, a PhD student of
Baluswamy. This books is a milestone in tamil history.
MV Baskar - Visual documentation
Thirteen years of Hard labor.
Documentation is not mere photography but Archaeometry. Digital cameras of
8Megapixels entered India in 2003. Now we shoot with 80Mp cameras. We composed
each photo of A4 size, so a wall painting will be photographed as sixty
different shots. Lighting is uneven so the same red may show up in different
shades in adjacent shots. We used gray cards to give us color context.
Most people shoot the most
photogenic scenes. We shot everything even the missing pieces which had only
damaged wall or even graffiti, so we can reconstruct the painting. All
paintings tend to be narrative paintings in temples, not pattern paintings.
Vasanta mandapam of Alagar Koil has lovely Ramayana depiction. Tirugokarnam has
Ramayana as we exit the temple, a structural narrative.
We had two photographers just for
paintings and two for all other aspects. Digital tempts them to shoot
limitlessly. We threw away two days worth of photos because we could not put
them together.
So we had to shoot after planning,
by mapping the pictures first. Cameras have no file structure. We had to map
and key in advance and then collate photos in that order.
This is scalable vector art,
machine readable. I worked with a Kalamkari artist from Andhra. We need pigment
analysis and such equipment is only in Aurangabad and Bombay. We picked up all
the fallen paint flecks and put them in zip lock bags.
Every painting in every temple has
been over painted. They can only be seen with infrared photography. An infrared
camera is twenty thousand dollars. Now it is much cheaper. We can rig one. I've
shot Ladakh Buddhist monastery paintings with infrared cameras and they are
also multi layered over time.
Academically, art and design
schools lack tangible programs to educate students. We need multiple accredited
programs at respected colleges to do this. Paintings also are accompanied by
inscriptions or text.
The paintings depict several
musical instruments. We recorded sounds from such musical instruments to create
a multi media presentation. History
can be far more engaging than only Archaeology. Money shortage is no longer an
issue.
I'm delighted Art Painting has finally come to Tamilnadu. This is quite popular in Bombay Delhi etc but so far unsuccessful here. Hotels ask for paintings but haven't paid and ran some people bankrupt. But that is changing
----End of Lecture notes---
Acknowledgement I downloaded some photos of Powerpoint presentations on screen at the lecture, taken by VK Srinivasan during the book release and posted in the comments of my Facebook and added them in this blog. I presume the original photos used in the Powerpoint are by photographer Narasimhan, who was one of the speakers.
Related Links
Prof Baluswamy on Arjuna’s Penance in Mamallapuram
Prof Dayanandan’s lecture on Evolution at Varahamihira Science Forum
MV Baskar on Preserving Ramayana Murals at Tamil Heritage Trust
Index of My essays on Art
Index of Lecture Notes in this blog
