Earth and Space News: Mandana Wall Paintings: 200th Anniversary of Ajanta Cave Wall Paintings

Summary: Perhaps Ajanta cave wall paintings, now in their 200th anniversary year in central-west India anticipate Mandana wall paintings in north India.

Mandana wall painting at Shilpgram Rural Arts and Crafts Complex, Udaipur, southernmost Rajasthan, northwestern India; Tuesday, Jan. 13, 2015, 05:09: Chinmayisk, CC BY SA 4.0 International, via Wikimedia Commons

Abstract and animal appearances and feminine artistry in Mandana wall paintings in Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan perhaps arose ancestrally from Ajanta cave wall paintings, now in their 200th anniversary year in Maharashtra.

Mandana floor and wall paintings in Rajasthan and Mandana wall paintings in Madhya Pradesh bespeak the ancient cultural traditions of the Meena tribeswomen of north-central India. Mandana wall paintings, Pithora wall paintings by the Bhil peoples and Warli wall paintings by the same-named peoples perhaps conserve 2,100- to 30,000-year-old cave art traditions. They perhaps descend from the 243-shelter art in seven-hill, 6.2-plus-mile- (10-plus-kilometer-) long Bhimbetka (from Sanskrit भीमबेटका, "[tall hero-god] Bhima's sitting place") rock shelters in Madhya Pradesh.

Ajanta's black, blue, green, red, white and yellow artistry versus Bhimbetka's red artistry on pale surfaces respectively endure in Pithora and, reversed, in Mandana and Warli.

Douglas Barrett and Basil Gray of Oriental Antiquities at the British Museum, in Painting of India, fit Ajanta cave wall paintings within north Indian artistic traditions.

Koshilaya Devi, conservationist in Baran city, Rajasthan, grounds Mandana floor and wall paintings within artistic contexts whereby "The art is typically passed from mother to daughter." Itinerant artisans honed Ajanta cave wall paintings whereas family men versus women traditionally and men since the 1970s handle Pithora wall paintings versus Warli wall paintings. Perhaps a female patron involved female itinerant artisans, models, novices and nuns in iterating feminine motifs throughout the Ajanta cave wall paintings in Ajanta cave 2.

Perhaps Mandana wall paintings juggle in the 200th anniversary year of European-accessed Ajanta cave wall paintings ancient journeys from and to Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra and Rajasthan.

Rajasthani women in Sawai Madhopur and Tonk keep up Mandana floor and wall paintings as good omens, for familial and property protection and to welcome deities.

Looking after their families and houses traditionally leads Madhya Pradeshi and Rajasthani women to layer plastered clay, cow dung and red ocher over floors and walls. Meena (from Sanskrit मत्स्य, mátsya, "fish") tribeswomen manipulate chuna (from Hindi चूना, "lime") or khariya (from Sanskrit खड़िया, "chalk") over geru (from Hindi गेरू, "red ocher"). Their brush-like cotton swabs, date palm twigs, hair tufts or palm tree fronds net white-pigmented animals such as cats, lions, peacocks and tigers and flowering plants.

Madan Meena, freelance artist in Kota, Rajasthan, observes regarding geometric patterns, "Architectural and scientific significance exists in Mandana art forms and it needs to be studied."

Mandana floor and wall paintings, bhuma chitra (भूमि चित्र) and bhitti chitra (from Hindi भित्ति चित्र), plot geometric shapes, such as rectangles, rhombuses, squares and triangles.

An Utsavpedia article by Utsav Fashion of New Delhi qualifies Tapki Ke Mandanas as architecture-like, geometrical, graph-plotted, jaali-like (lattice-screened, from Hindi जाली, "net") Mandana floor paintings. Mandana floor and wall paintings realize Sanskrit-relayed (मण्डन, mandana, "embellishment") responsibilities in altar-like and temple floor-like designs for births, field and house responsibilities, harvests and marriages. They seek elephant god Ganesha's (from Sanskrit गणेश, "group ruler") intelligence, prosperity, success and wisdom and goddess Lakshmi's (from Sanskrit लक्ष्मी, "auspiciousness") fortune, money and wealth.

Itinerant artisans, theorized among women still in Ajanta cave wall paintings on their 200th anniversary, turned out Mandana wall paintings before and after their Ajanta tenures.

Mandana painting may descend from Bhimbetka rock shelter art; paintings in Rock Shelter 8, Bhimbetka rock shelters, central Madhya Pradesh, central India; Wednesday, Dec. 4, 2013, 09:18: Bernard Gagnon (Bgag), CC BY SA 3.0 Unported, via Wikimedia Commons

Acknowledgment

My special thanks to talented artists and photographers/concerned organizations who make their fine images available on the internet.

Image credits:

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Earth and Space News

Friday, August 30, 2019

Mandana Wall Paintings: 200th Anniversary of Ajanta Cave Wall Paintings

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