South Indian Paintings by C. Sivaramamurti. ISBN: 8123000529
South Indian Paintings is written
by Calambur Sivaramamurti who has authored many books featuring artworks of the
Indian subcontinent. This book, first printed in 1968, is an excellent product
for its era. It contains many full colour images of a variety of paintings as
well as black and white line drawings of the authors interpretation of damaged
works. The authors starts with an In depth view of painting in India, the use
of colour and the process of painting itself. He then presents the works of
art, sorted by culture and time making direct comparisons of different
locations where relevant. He starts with Vakataka (4th-6th
century CE) to the Mahratta (19th
century). He wraps up with a list, and description, of the schools of Indian
painting and their styles. As this book was printed in 1968, it lacks computer
enhanced imagery however Sivaramamurti’s descriptions of the artworks and the
themes within them make up for the lack of detail in earlier works. I only wish
that books by Sivaramamurti were more easily available.
From an SCA perspective this book has some lovely reference images. The author provides a nice cultural background and explains the theme of each image presented which is highly useful. Though some of the images can be found on the internet they usually lack background information which Sivaramamurti provides in spades.
From a personal perspective, I was disheartened to find that there is only one image, 1/3rd of a page for Kakatiya (11th - 13th century), which is the area and time I'm currently interested in. The author does however mention the inaccessibility of the Tripueantakam temple, I'm hoping this has been rectified in the last 50 years since print.
4/5
The back cover of South Indian Paintings. A quick search turned up no reference to this image however the sari's worn by the women have a very pleasing selection of decorations, from geometrical to floral.
Nice Painting..
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