Tags:
Journalism of Courage
YOU would drive past Sittannavasal if you did not know it was there. The road to Tanjore and Trichy seems isolated and without promise. But if you step off the road and go behind the huge boulders that hide Sittannavasal like a secret, you will see some incredible things. Carved out of a granite hillock is the rock-cut temple of Sittannavasal, which I first chanced upon in 1988.
This little temple has a flat roof, a verandah and a sanctum beyond it. It is the verandah and its pillars that make this temple extraordinary. They were painted around the eighth century with a technique that had evolved from the time of the earlier Ajanta paintings. The style and composition, however, of the paintings at Sittannavasal are a continuation of Ajanta, which left an impact on the wall painting tradition for centuries. This tradition meandered its way from Ajanta into Bagh to Sittannavasal, Tanjore and several other temple wall paintings traditions.
Having found Sittannavasal, we lay down on the floor of the verandah to gaze at the paintings on the ceiling above, a profusion of birds, elephants, buffaloes and fish swimming through long-stemmed lotuses and lilies making the waters move as it were. Three figures tread the water through this abundance causing greater movement. This plenitude has been painted with earth red, yellow ochre, green earth, all of which are earth colours. A passerby showed us a bush that grew nearby, the leaves of which when crushed yielded a brick red colour. According to him, that plant was the origin of the red colour used in the paintings. I have often heard it said that vegetable colours were used on ancient wall paintings, but I find it difficult to believe that vegetable colours can still show their brilliance 12 centuries later, as in the case of Sittannavasal, while being exposed to intense sunlight. For reasons that I have been unable to fathom, guides and custodians inform you with great pride that the wall paintings that you are about to see have been painted with vegetable colours. By this they generally mean dried green leaves, indigo, turmeric or dried flowers.
Strong and light-fast colours like earth colours are composed of tiny particles that resist sunlight and hence retain their colour over centuries. Vegetable colours do not have such particles and fade within months. It is impossible, therefore, that vegetable colours were used on wall paintings which received natural light or sunlight, like Sittannavasal or the entire range of the Kerala wall paintings. What applies to vegetable and earth colours also applies to watercolours and oil colours. The trick is in the colour particles. The particles in watercolour paintings are scattered as it is only in this manner that such a painting has the look of transparency. Watercolours have to therefore be protected from natural light and sunlight. The particles in oil paintings are compressed and held close together by the oil, giving such paintings an intense and glossy look. Oil paintings do not fade the way watercolours do.
In the particle lies the durability of colour.
