Rock art Reproductions by Dr. Yashodhara Mathpal in IGNCA Collections
Rock art Reproductions by Dr. Yashodhara Mathpal in IGNCA Collections
Rock Art Reproductions
Rock Art is a precious heritage as its a vast mine of archaeological information about the prehistoric societies. The term rock art is used for drawings, paintings and engravings on the bare rocks and the walls of naturally formed caves, rock shelters and boulders.
In India there are several rock art locations. They need urgent attention as they are vanishing because of natural changes, chemicals and human intervention. One of the best ways to conserve them is to make scientific copies and document them. IGNCA was keenly involved in the task, commissioning one of the world-renowned experts on rock art Dr. Yashodhara Mathpal. The Centre has acquired 112 of the reproductions by Dr. Mathpal. The collection contains reproductions from Kerala, Kumaon and Madhya Pradesh. He has also authored two monographs on the rock art for IGNCA-one of Kerala, and the other on Kumaon Himalaya. In India, rock art sites are found in Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, Kerala, Kashmir, Madhya Pradesh, Orissa, Uttar Pradesh and Uttaranchal.
Rock art is broadly divided into two forms-petroglyphs and pictographs. Pictographs refer to painted figures that are also called rock paintings and petroglyphs refer to abraded drawings or incisions. Dr. Mathpal used several methods to do the reproductions. According to him, photography is inadequate because of the uneven surface of the canvas and several such technical problems. First and foremost, the person attempting reproduction of rock art must be a good artist as the copying has to be done on the spot.
Discussing the methods of reproductions, he says painted images were reproduced by him on papers of different sizes according to the size of the compositions. In cases where the drawing or the painting was large, it was measured and reduced in scale, usually three or four times. Wherever it was possible, a cellophane paper was used to trace the drawing and it was transferred to the drawing sheet. While copying drawings, the background was first drawn in original colour and the figures in a little darker shade. The painting and drawing had to be completed on the spot, in the presence of the originals for constant comparing and correcting till the correct result was obtained.
For the sake of documentation, Dr. Mathpal also prepared slides, in both colour and black and white. From his own study and experience, Dr. Mathpal developed a system of classification. First the figures are placed in broad categories – natural, geometric and abstract. These are further divided in terms of style as silhouetted, decorative, partially filled and outlined. Dr. Mathpal says in `Rock Art in Kerala‘ “rock art is a visual form of art which seems very eye-catching and easily tangible…Anyone can easily identify a human figure or an animal species having natural body contours. But the empirical identification and significance may not be true for those who were its creators.”
According to Dr. Mathpal, the original artists used two kinds of mineral colours – the ochrous or ferrous oxide clay and manganese oxide. They also used an artificial red pigment prepared through sedimentations, decanting and heating of yellow sediments. Some kind of adhesive was mixed with pigment. Many questions regarding the height at which these paintings were executed and the conditions under which they were drawn remain unanswered.
IGNCA has published some rock art paintings in picture post cards. It has also made an interactive CD-ROM on Rock Art. It has 300 annotated photographs and over 20 minutes Video.
Dr. Bachchan Kumar, a research officer in the Kala Kosa Division of IGNCA, received the A.K. Narain award of the XXXVI Annual conference of the Indian Archaeological Society held at Ernakulam on December 19-22, 2003.
The prestigious award was presented by the Governor of Kerala Sri Sikandar Bakht. It is a fitting recognition of Dr. Kumar’s contribution to the study of history and cultures in the South-East Asian region
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