Kangra paintings adorn D’sala ahead of Global Investors’ Meet

Lalit Mohan

Tribune News Service

Dharamsala, November 5

Dying form of Kangra painting has found a space during the gala event of Investors Meet being organized in Dharamsala on November 7-8. Several walls in the city have been embellished with Kangra paintings that are being appreciated by locals and tourists.

In Kangra, paintings depicting Lord Krishna and Radha adore the walls near the Gandhi crossing and opposite the walls of Zonal hospital.

Deputy Commissioner Kangra, Rakesh Prajapati said that various students learning Kangra style of paintings were roped in through Kangra museum to paint the walls with heritage painting style of the Kangra valley. “The paintings have attracted appreciation from almost everybody. So we intend to continue this practice of decorating walls of Dharamsala city with Kangra paintings even after the investors meet”, he said.

Raghav Guleria, a resident of Dharamsala, appreciated the efforts of the district administration to display Kangra paintings during the meet. He said that pahari miniature paintings that represent delicacy of lines and brilliance of colours is most authentic medium of portraying feminine beauty.

According to W G Archar, it was Guler, a former state of Kangra, where this art form originated in the beginning of the 18th century and spread to other 38 centres of Pahari art. In the year 2010, the auction of miniature painting fetched whopping 10.73 crores at Chiristes in London and drew the attention of the world community to Kangra miniature paintings. Soon after Eberhard Ficher, an art anthropologist from Switzerland, produced a movie called Nainsukh of Guler based on the book written by BN Goswami, he said.

The unique style of Kangra paintings developed under the aegis of Kangra and Guler states. The paintings are done in 19 natural colours, typically associated with Kangra form of art. The colours are created from stones and plants found in Kangra valley. It takes about a year to create the required colours as they can be generated only from natural sources existing at a particular time of the year. Besides the natural colours, gold has also been used in some paintings. It gives the required shine to the paintings.

Another unique feature of this art is the use of natural poison, which protects the painting from decay. The poison is prepared from smoke that gathers at the roof of religious places where holy fire burns continuously. Natural paper is created from the bio-waste of pine trees. Even the brush used in painting is prepared from the wings of local bird.

However, the children learning Kangra style of painting are not being taught the said intricacies. Preparing colours for typical Kangra painting is a time-consuming process that cannot be taught in short duration for which children attend school, said a teacher.

“We just tell them the basic style and children paint in Kangra style using water colours. To some extent the Kangra style is close to Rajasthan paintings”, he added.