Kandyan Era Frescoes

Kandyan era frescoes are mural paintings created during the Kingdom of Kandy (1469–1815) in Sri Lanka, a time when kings gave a special place to arts and literature.

As there was a political instability in Sri Lanka after the Anuradhapura Era, which lasted more than 500 years, kings didn't take much effort to build up the religious side of the people. So there were no monks with Upasampada and people had no much education about Buddhism. So with the start of Kandyan Kingdom, the monks got Upasampada, and started to teach people the Buddhism. As people didn't know many things, monks (Specially Sangaraja Maha Nahimi) advised the kings to paint the walls of the temples with Jataka Stories so that anyone could understand even he didn't know to read. That's the start of frescoes of the Kandyan Era.

The walls of the Kandyan Era were built by clay which was stuck in between sticks. Then after they used Makulu Meti, a white colored clay, to smooth the walls in temples and palaces as it was only allowed for palaces and temples to built in white color at that time. The frescoes were drawn after dividing the wall of the image house into horizontal rows. After dividing, drawing the whole Jataka Story was started from right to left, then left to right in the next row (Zigzag) in Akhanda Kathana Kramaya [akhaṇḍa-kathana-kramaya] or painting the whole story in fresco. To separate different scenes, the artists have drawn a tree, a river, or a house. The pictures of people were drawn in Parshawa Darshi Kramaya [pārśava-darśī-kramaya] , or drawing the faces and legs facing to a side. The background of the frescoes were painted in a dark red color, and flowers like Lotus, Pandanus flowers are used to fill the blanks. These frescoes were drawn in very fine lining.

The blanks of the Kandyan Frescoes have been filled with traditional flower patterns. Not only for filling blanks, these patterns have been used to decorate the Udu Viyan (Ceilings). As flowers, mainly lotus flowers are used. Instead of them, Pandanus flowers, Binara flowers, Beraliya flowers, Jasmine flowers have been used.

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