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Painting on glass became popular in India in the
19th century. Expressive and lively, the paintings are
distinct in style and require a certain amount of skill and effort to
paint.
Glass paintings are the pictures drawn and painted
on transparent glass sheets and framed with the unpainted side upper
most, so that the painting is visible through the glass. It is not
quite possible to determine or establish the origin of this craft in
India. One may conjecture that certain European painters who were
proficient in this technique were working in our country. However,
glass painting became popular and widespread only during the 19th
century.
Glass painting can be considered a middleclass or
popular art though strangely and like most art forms it originated
with rulers. In fact one may suggest that it is the rulers who were
generally the innovators of taste, who were quick to assimilate or
imitate fashions and styles outside conventional usage. They also
patronized foreign talent. In fact a number of European painters were
working in India in the 18th century and their work was
acquired not only by foreigners but also by Indian rulers.
Glass painting became popular with the masses, as it was quite
inexpensive. These pictures began to be hung on walls. The paintings
made rulers ( Tipu Sultan collections in Mysore and at Satara and
Kutch are some examples) are mainly portraits of the aristocrats and
their friends or of their mistresses and dancing girls. These were
distinct in style and character and probably painted by foreign
artists. A few glass paintings may have been imported. The pictures
on glass painted for the middle class are all by Indian painters and
are mainly of deities. They began to be made in the south and west of
the country, but gradually spread to other parts.
The study of glass painting can be divided into two
broad categories. One comparatively courtly and the other folk. The
majority of works are on religious themes, others are portraits or of
secular subject. Some are entirely decorative consisting of floral
designs.
Painting on glass necessitates a different procedure
from painting on paper or on solid opaque surfaces like wood. The
picture which is generally colored in tempera ( non-transparent
colored often thickened with white) is begun first with the brush
lines and details, which will when finished appear uppermost. Than
the larger areas of colour are brushed in; these are generally flat
except for the face and body, or drapery where a fullness is achieved
by shading. The “ shading” is really a kind of modeling
with a smoth gradation of colour which shows the roundness of forms
and is not related to light and shade. Thus the usual painting
process is reversed; details especially the finishing lines are made
first and the large areas of colour afterwards. Gold leaf, small
sequins and other shining particles are used to imitate jewellery.
Sometimes portions of the picture are mirrored with mercury. In some
places metal foil or gold paper is fixed behind the picture left bare
are seen as gold. The picture is then mounted with its unpainted side
foremost, so that it is seen through the glass. The technique
requires a certain amount of skill and can be quite laborious.
The glass painting style is an amalgam of the old
and the popular. Though we may consider the works “traditional”
because they adhere to patterns and iconography, which were accepted
by both patrons and artists, they are also innovative depending on
the freedom exercised by artists with varying gifts.
The compositions are generally small in size and
crowded with space- filling motifs and figures. The drawing is
characteristically bold and vigorous. Among typical folk features may
be mentioned the great clarity of conception and the bias toward
frontality and symmetry. There is also a love of decoration with
the tendency to fill up empty spaces and a striving for rhythm though
repetition. Dots, lines and patterns contribute to the creation of
texture. The colouring is most often rich and varied. In the more
archaic pieces there is an emphasis on forntality, on the use of
relative size (the important figures are larger) and the heads and
eyes are proportionately large.
Indian glass painting is at once highly eclectic and
robustly native. Though we may find the language of these pictures
limited we have to admit that it is expressive, lively and
intelligible. The class for whom they were created was interested
primarily in the subject; secondly they wanted something splendid
they wanted something splendid and shining, an art that could be
displayed. Above all, the pictures of the gods were auspicious and
their effect magical.
Although a few glass paintings continue to be made
they are generally very debased and crude. Their decline in
popularity may be attributed to the arrival of printed pictures,
which are comparatively cheap and less fragile.
The traditional glass painting, now a coveted and
some what saleable commodity in the antique market, has not received
a suitable place in the collection of Indian museums. It is not
unlikely that in times to come, there may be fewer specimens left
then for research students. The principal source of difficulty with
regard to these paintings is its fragile nature and the problem of
preserving the coating of paint on it. I am quite pessimistic as to
the survival of this unique craft which is already on the verge to
extinction.
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