Mural Paintings

Subject – Art and Culture

Context –Memorial to a massacre: Stark Jallianwala passage gets a mural makeover

Concept –

The word ‘mural’ derived from the Latin word ‘murus’ which means wall. It can be defined as any piece of artwork painted or applied directly onto a wall, ceiling or other larger permanent surfaces, flat, concave or convex, to be precise.
It is an oldest human art form, as cave paintings at numerous ancient human settlements suggest, and can be found all over globe.
India has a rich tradition of mural wealth. The treatises such as Vishnudharmottara, Silpashastra, Manasollasa, Shilparatna, Narada-shilpa-shastra and Kashyapa-shilpa, discuss at length all aspects of painting, including murals.

The characteristics of the Mural Painting are given below:

It depict the activities of a particular civilization‘s people, encapsulating a moment in time, and range from scenes of hunting, gathering, and family life, to religious and funerary scenes.
It is a combination of wide variety of artistic style, Realism with a dramatic sense of scale and amazing depth.
Artwork depicts the expression of emotions through hand postures.
It played an important role in reflecting changes in the political culture through the depiction of subjects ranging from religion to sex.
It often served the role of creating public awareness of certain issues and in decisive ways performed the function of socio-political critique, as well as reinforcing political and community identities.
It acts as a mediator between the public, the government, and artists. This relationship is complex and very prickly at times, especially when, as is so often the case in Iran, art is politicized and politics is aestheticized.
It is three-dimensional form of artwork.