Indian Silk Painting

Indian silk paintings have a long and rich tradition going back to the antiquities. The Indian paintings style emphasizes softness, elegance and a flexibility of style. Since the late middle ages, silk have been used as a medium for portraits and paintings. Craftsmen and women in India employ a special process that allows the silk canvas to retain the paint in vibrant detail. This process often makes the silk stiff in quality for which the early appreciators of art mistakenly

thought the paintings were on paper.After closer examination they could actually see the fibers in some of the paintings and realized it was made on a canvas of silk.

Silk Paintings reached their apex when during Mughal rule in the early 17th-19th century. Mughal kings patronized arts and literature and it is little wonder that many of today's paintings still have a Mughal quality to them. The hot spot for these paintings became the desert kingdoms of Rajasthan and the largest concentration of artists for this type of art can still be found there today. Rich court life and religious themes are often depicted as a characteristic of this art form. Beautiful women are often found in these works of art along with vibrant gemstone coloring. The heavy use of gold leaf appears as another distinguishing characteristic.