Tanjore: A Portfolio of Paintings

The Tanjore painting is known for its brilliance and a jewel-like rich look, which its artists created by using real gold and silver foils, and inlay material – precious and semi-precious stones, beads, mirrors, coloured glass-pieces, powdered metals – gold in particular.  A patron’s financial status and willingness to spend determined the value-wise quality of the material used, though despite that the over-all aesthetic merit of the painting depended on how the artist, working with this material, used it.  The gems or even the palette, used in a particular painting, was not always the choice of the artist.  Sometimes, a patron’s astrologer decided as to which of the stones and colours would suit him and the same were broadly used in the painting rendered for him.  Many a time a patron believed that the best of his possessions – jewels, were a Divine custody, things of the Lord, and to symbolize it preferred keeping them, or their part, as inlaid with His canvas image jewels, believing that this image was one of His manifestations and anything dedicated to such image was his direct dedication to Him.  In simple analogy, with such painted image in his possession, he yet possessed these jewels but now he was merely a keeper of the Divine custody, not its owner for he could keep them, not make a personal use.  As was the practice, the patrons used to give from their coffers atleast the precious stones and gold, and the artist was required to conceive his designs with what his patron made available.