Bhimbetka painting

[Guest guest]

Dear Kamlesh,

I have a photo of horse & rider from

Bhimbetka, MP.

I've been told, it was painted far later than

some of the other paintings there.

 

 

Kathie B., New England

[Guest guest]

Dear Katherine,

Thanks a lot for the picture. Now the next question is, can I

use it in the book? Who has the copy right to this picture?

I need a formal permission letter.

Regards,

Kamlesh

 

 

 

 

 

On Behalf

Of Katherine Brobeck

Wednesday, March 19, 2008 6:31 PM

 

Re: Bhimbetka painting

 

 

 

 

 

 

Dear Kamlesh,

I have a photo of horse & rider from

Bhimbetka, MP.

I've been told, it was painted far later than

some of the other paintings there.

[Guest guest]

Dear Kamlesh,

By the way, do you know the location of the Saptamatrka

temple shown in the website's photo section, taken

by Sriraman_ps? Is it in Chengalput dist.?

I collect info on ancient Indian sites.

thank you.

Kathie B.

[Guest guest]

 

 

 

 

 

 

I've been told, it was painted far later than

some of the other paintings there.

 

I apologize for using an expletive, but I go ahead all the same for want of a better word. What you have been told is an absolute bullshit.

Kishore patnaik

[Guest guest]

Kishore ji,

What is this about?

Could not understand the connection?

Regards,

Kamlesh

 

 

 

 

On Behalf

Of kishore patnaik

Friday, March 28, 2008 12:40 PM

 

Re: Re: Bhimbetka painting

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I've been told, it was painted far later than

some of the other paintings there.

 

 

I

apologize for using an expletive, but I go ahead all the same for want of a

better word. What you have been told is an absolute bullshit.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Kishore patnaik

 

 

 

 

[Guest guest]

All the paintings are contemporaneous. It is nonsense to think that

some of them belong to a later date. I would post a long message after

sometime.

 

Kishore patnaik

 

 

 

, " Kamlesh Kapur " <kamleshk wrote:

>

> Kishore ji,

>

> What is this about?

>

> Could not understand the connection?

>

> Regards,

>

> Kamlesh

>

>

>

>

On

> Behalf Of kishore patnaik

> Friday, March 28, 2008 12:40 PM

>

> Re: Re: Bhimbetka painting

>

>

>

I've been told, it was painted far later than

> some of the other paintings there.

>

> I apologize for using an expletive, but I go ahead all the same for

want of

> a better word. What you have been told is an absolute bullshit.

>

>

>

>

Kishore patnaik

>

[Guest guest]

http://www.4to40.com/indian_travel_places/index.asp?placeid=17

 

 

 

Bhimbetka

Archaeological Site | Madhya Pradesh

The mesolithic artists loved to paint animals.

They painted deer, boars, elephants, leopards, tigers, panthers,

rhinoceroses, antelopes, fish, frogs, lizards, squirrels and birds...

Updated On: 1/18/2008

[Total Votes: 309, Hits: 805] Print

The

first artists were stone age people whose names we do not know. They

couldn't sign their names under their paintings, because they lived in

a time when people didn't know how to write. They made their paintings

not on paper but on rocks. Prehistoric rock paintings have been found

in many parts of the world. There are over 150 rock painting sites in

India itself. Many of them are in central India. The largest and most

spectacular one is located in the Vindhyan hills at Bhimbetka in Madhya

Pradesh. Bhimbetka

was a great place to live for stone age people. The overhanging rock

ledges on the hillsides gave them shelter. The thick forest was full of

edible plants and fruits that they could collect and many different

kinds of animals that they could hunt. Water was available all year

round in the streams and creeks. Thousands of stone tools

belonging different phases of the stone age have been found at

Bhimbetka. The palaeolithic age was the first part of the stone age,

when people got their food through hunting and gathering. The

palaeolithic people who lived in the rock shelters of Bhimbetka

sometimes paved the floors with stone boulders and slabs. They buried

their dead under the floors along with tools made of stone and bone

This show that they had some sort of belief in life after death.

Although some kinds of rock for making stone tools were available in

the Bhimbetka hills, people sometimes traveled long distances to get

certain special kinds of stones. Bhimbetka is like a gigantic

open air art gallery where you can see pictures made by people over

thousands of years. Out of the 642 rock shelters at Bhimbetka, nearly

400 have paintings. The oldest and largest number of paintings belong

to the mesolithic phase, of the stone age. They may be about 10,000

years old. During the mesolithic phase, people were still basically

hunters and food gatherers. But they had learnt to make and use tiny

stone tools known as microliths. They attached these onto bone or

wooden handles to make knives, arrows, spears and other kinds of

weapons and tools. The

stone age artists made their paintings on the surfaces, walls and

ceilings of the rock shelters. Some of the paintings were made in

shelters where people lived. But some of the biggest and best paintings

were made in places which do not seem to have been living spaces at

all. Maybe these were places where some sort of secret magic or

religious rituals were performed. Some of the most grand paintings are

very high up on rock surfaces or close to the ceilings of rock

shelters. The artists and their helpers could only have climbed to

these spots with the help of scaffolding. Such paintings must have had

a special importance for the people. But than, many others may have

been made by people simply because they liked to paint or because they

wanted to make their homes more colorful and beautiful, or because they

wanted to tell a story in pictures. Like us, stone age people also had

feelings, thoughts, worries, fears, likes and dislikes. And they

expressed these things in their paintings. What did the stone

age people use for brushes and paints? They could have made the handles

of brushes out of twigs or wood. For the brush itself, they could have

used silk cotton, animal fur or squirrel tail. The mesolithic artists

of Bhimbetka knew as many as 21 colours, including various shades of

white, yellow, orange, red, purple, brown, green and black. Their

favourite colours were white and light red. The paints were made by

grinding various rocks and minerals. They got red from haematite (iron

oxide, known as 'geru' in India). The green came from a green variety

of a stone called chalcedony. White might have been made out of

limestone. The rock of mineral was first ground into a powder. This may

then have been mixed with water and also with some thick or sticky

substance such as animal fat or gum or resin from trees. The

mesolithic artists loved to paint animals. They painted deer, boars,

elephants, leopards, tigers, panthers, rhinoceroses, antelopes, fish,

frogs, lizards, squirrels and birds. It is interesting that they did

not make any paintings of snakes. Maybe this was because they were very

afraid of them. In some pictures, animals are chasing men. In others

they are being chased and hunted by men. The paintings may look simple,

but if you look at them carefully, you will see that the artists were

able to convey movement and feeling very skillfully. The

hunting scenes show people hunting in groups, armed with sticks,

spears, bows and arrows and slings. They also used traps and snares to

catch animals. The hunters wear simple clothes and ornaments. They are

sometimes shown wearing masks and head-dresses crowned with feathers,

horns or antlers. The animals are painted in a very realistic way. They

usually look huge and powerful compared to the humans who look small

and insignificant. Sometimes, animals were painted in the 'x-ray

style,' showing their inner organs. This gives us the feeling that we

are looking into the animal, just as an x-ray gives us a picture of the

skeleton inside our body. Some of the animal pictures, especially in

the hunting scenes, show a fear of animals, but many others show a

feeling of tenderness and love for them. This feeling comes out in

scenes of grazing buffaloes, hopping rabbits, and monkeys jumping

about, and also in scenes that show animals like panthers, tigers and

deer with their babies. While

the artists made the pictures of animals in great detail, they usually

painted men as match-stick figures, and women with only a slightly

fuller body. They painted young and old people. They painted children

running, jumping and playing. They painted scenes of people dancing

gracefully in groups, sometimes to the beat of a drummer. They painted

scenes of people gathering fruit or honey from trees, and of women

grinding and preparing food. Some of the scenes of men, women and

children seem to show a sort of family life. Certain men, with masks or

designs on their body, often carrying baskets on their back, look like

chiefs. There are others, wearing masks and animal head-dresses, who

seem to have been priests. In many of the rock shelters we see

hand-prints, fist-prints, and dots made by fingers tips. Even today, in

many parts of our country, people make these kinds of prints on the

walls of their houses on special occasions. One of the curious

things about the paintings at many rock art sites is that the artists

often painted new paintings on top of the older ones. At Bhimbetka, in

some places there are as many as 20 layers of paintings, one on top of

other. Why did the artists paint in the same spot when so much empty

space was available? We don't know for sure, but may be this was

because some of the paintings and places were considered sacred or

special. The hunting scenes could have been connected with some sort of

ritual that people performed in the hope that it would lead to a

successful hunt. How do we know that the earliest paintings at Bhimbetka were made by stone age people and were not made more recently?

Although

there are many tribal people living in the area today, they say that

these paintings were not made by them or their ancestors. We do not see

recent inventions like bicycles, cars, planes or guns in the paintings.

The thousands of stone tools found at Bhimbetka clearly show that stone

age humans lived here. The subjects of the paintings also fit in well

with the life they led. Also, some some of the paintings are so faded,

and the surface on which they are made is so worn out and damaged that

it is clear that they were made long ago and not recently. The

later paintings at Bhimbetka have been different themes and styles.

Instead of men hunting in groups. we see men hunting alone. There are

men on horses and chariots, tamed animals and processions of animals.

The still later paintings show soldiers marching or facing each other

in battle, and royal processions. Animals become much less important.

These must have been the things that the people who lived in the rock

shelters of Bhimbetka either experienced themselves or saw happening in

the plains below the hills. Just as the paintings made by stone age

people tell us about the way of life of stone age humans, these later

paintings show us how much life had changed since those early times.O

[Guest guest]

The scholars have widely trisected the style of these paintings based on their 'style " -- natural, geometric and abstract. The artificial time classifications could not be tallied with the trisection of the style.

The paintings display a hoard of Indian puranas- the yaksa, the kakushta (the rider of a bull- notice the hump on the bull with the rider charging with a primitive weapon, as described in the puranic story), Rama of the Axe(III F 21)

Wkankar has placed the pictures of the elephants to mesolithic age ( say, pre 2500 bce). Ironically, the pictures of monkeys are placed later, say as late as 300 bce.

The horse riders and elephant riders are castigated to even much later times as those of Mauryan and sunga periods. In the process, the paintings have to be bifurcated into several styles, some times as many as 15 styles per period. ie hardly 10 to 15 paintings belong to each style and these styles span across time periods.

In any case, the dating by wakankar seems to be very subjective and no aid of scientific analysis is taken. I invite comments, Kishore patnaik