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Shekhawati - An Open Air
Art Gallery
Paintings are a common expression in
Rajasthan, and everything from village huts,
simple decorated with a plaster of cowdung
paste and lime, to the wall paintings found
in palaces echo this. However, if there is
one region that stands out for its
consummate artistry, it is the Shekhawati
region where the streets are lined with
havelis painted in the nature of a vast open
air art gallery.
The Shekhawati region lies in the triangle
between Delhi, Jaipur and Bikaner, and
consists of a semi-arid desert. It is also
the home of the Marwaris, India's mercantile
community that now commands vast business
empires in different parts of the country
and the world. When the Marwaris made their
first froays with the maharajas whom they
served, they found that there was money to
be made from establishing business in
distant centres. Under the Britist their
prosperity aspired even higher, and they
took their businesses to Calcutta and Surat
and other pockets of influence.
With the money they made, they ordered
lavish havelis back home, and in order to
make them attractive, had them painted in
what has come to be defined as the
Shekhawati fresco style. A sense of
competitiveness brought in excess, since
this provided the worth of the owner's
presumed wealth. The style of fresco
painting is locally known as ala gila. The
colours, mixed into a paste, were applied on
to the damp wall finished with a plaster of
lime paste. The colours were made to seep
into the damp plaster through a process that
consisted of beating, burnishing and
polishing. The painters and masons who were
commissioned for the task undertook large
panels together, working in teams so that
joints in plaster, and therefore in the
frescos, did not show. Binding agents such
as tempera, gum and camel fat were also
used.
The pigments were obtained from iron rich
sediments (greens, yellow, ochres),
lampblack (black), indigo (blues), stone
powder (red), saffron (orange) and chalk
(white). The process of creating the frescos
was tedious. A wall was given two layers of
clay plaster, a third of mortar into which
finely cut pieces of hessian were added, and
followed by a coat of plaster using lime,
gravel or brick dust. Another coat of lime
also used marble dust. The final coat
consisted of sieved lime dust made into a
paste using sour buttermilk and jaggery.
This was the basic surface on which the
painters had to draw and fill in colours
while the uppermost layer was still wet.
This was then polished with smooth agate,
and dry coconut rubbed in to seal in the
painting. The exercise may have been
arduous, but is ensured that the paintings
have lasted over a century, their only
damage being man- made more than wrought by
nature. Considering that most of these
paintings are out in the open, this is all
the more surprising.
The subjects of the Shekhawati frescos
ranged across a variety of themes, and
changed over time, from the late 18th
century when it began, to the early 20th
century by when it had almost totally
degenerated.
FLORAL: The early work tended to be
simple, using fewer colours, and consisted
of floral interpretations of motifs. Later,
floral work was mostly reserved for the more
awkward elements of architecture, such as
pillars and arches. More commonly, floral
motifs were used to create frames and unite
a complete section, within which were
canvases of paintings. In the few Muslim
havelis, only floral representations of
foliage are to be found.
RELIGIOUS: A great body of the vast
amount of work, particularly in interior
spaces and around the main entrances, tended
to be a mythical and religious record of the
people. The subjects, however, were not
always painted in idolatory form, but used
subjects from Indian religious legends and
fables, so that entire canvases could be
covered with the marriage processions of
gods, or their great wars with the demons,
or depictions from the Ramayana. The legends
of Krishna, and in particular Ras Leela,
find representation in the circular ceiling
below domes.
HISTORIC: Tales of valour are
omnipresent, and consist of a historical
cast as well as scenes of great battles, and
portraits of well known rulers. Mostly,
these were painted in the chhatris of the
wells, or in the castles of the Rajput
feudal chiefs who controlled small feudatory
states in this region.
SECULAR: Most of the external walls
represent aspects of life that were clearly
aspirational, or a commentary on their
lifestyles. These consisted of scenes of
processions, of caparisoned lovers such as
Dhola and Maru, even trompe I'oeil paintings
that created a suspension of belief in
disbelief. Women peeping out of windows, a
camel straddling a small window, or a
staircase turning into an elephant with the
balustrade its trunk, these were some of the
more delightful representations.
INFLUENCE OF THE RAJ: Contact with
the English sahib whom the painters had
never seen, but about whom they had heard
from their patrons, resulted in the last
body of a musing work. The havelis now bore
witness to the passage of trains, to their
gods journeying in motor cars, and to such
inventions as the telephone and the
aeroplane. Even portraits of English sahibs
and memsahibs were painted, some walking
their dog, others engaged in needlework-
pursuits that the people of the region must
have looked upon with a sense of humour, for
the paintings are robbed of serious intent,
and have degenerated by this time into a
form of caricature.
The Shekhawati fresco had ceased to be by
the 1930s, after having resorted to absurd
gimmickry, the end more the result of the
migration of the Marwari families. The
abandonment of the region in the hand of
caretakers led to the desecration of the
murals, with several examples of beautiful
art simply painted over by hoarding painters
and shop banners. In the last decade, a
growing awareness of the heritage has been
able to stem this rot to a great extent,
though the lack of maintenance is taking its
toll on the art of the region.
Visitors to the Shekhawati region can stay
in any of several heritage hotels that were
once feudal castles. Interestingly, many of
these historic hotels too are beautiful
examples of the painted walls of the region.
Simply driving through these small towns, or
walking down narrow lanes, can throw up
brilliant works of art. |
