Painted Abode of Gods Mural Traditions of Kerala

The Kerala mural tradition of the medieval period, at least 400 years old, retained elements of the great classical wall painting traditions.  By 20th Century it slipped into oblivion and most of the sites were obliterated through damage or repainting.  This lavishly illustrated book is the first comprehensive effort to document a vividly colourful tradition to enrich Indian art history.  Artist A Ramachandran has been repeatedly visiting the major and the more obscure sites for close to 50 years to record, study, and visually document the complex narrative and iconographic tradition.  Beginning as a student in Santiniketan, Ramachandran was undeterred by the difficulties of photographing, paucity of source material and the disappearance of the living tradition.  The author discusses among the scores he has studied the best representative sites showing stylistic changes.  He compares various styles, analyses material and technique from an artist’s point of view and correlates it with other visual and performing arts.  The thoroughly researched book is enriched with nearly 400 colour plates, maps and site plans which act as a key.  Although thje author’s area of study is Hindu paintings, he has included a sampling of a unexplored parallel stream of Christian mural art by adding a study of three churches as this painting tradition is unrecorded and need further research.