The Blue God in Indian miniatures

This exhibition, shown in one of the smaller rooms of the museum, deals with the blue God Krishna in Indian miniatures. Apart from several mural paintings in palaces and temples, most of the pictures were painted in a smaller size on paper, or before this was available, on palm leaves.

To look at the image you took the miniature in hand, because the European tradition of hanging paintings on the wall and looking at them from a certain distance was unknown in India.

Most of the time, the painters worked for royal employers. Their colors were hand-made out of minerals or pigments from sources such as plants and animals and the paint was applied on the also hand-made paper by a fine brush made of a squirrel’s tail hair. After the first rough drawing, the final outlines were colored in every detail, before a polish with the help of an agate cemented the colors and brought out the luster.

The exhibited works are part of a private collection in Coblence and show the life of Krishna. Krishna is the so called Blue God and the most popular God in India. He is the 8th incarnation of the God Vishnu. In form of an avatar, human or animal, Vishnu comes back to earth to ward off harm and to establish the balance of good and evil. Most of the time, Vishnu’s avatars are depicted in a dark blue skin color, which is the color of the universe and which symbolized the highest level of awareness.

Duration of Exhibition: 26th of July – 5th of October 2014

Opening of the exhibition: Friday, 25th of July 2014, 7 pm