Another inspiration behind our Kinner Kailash collection- Kangra Miniatures. March 06 2015

Kangra Miniature paintings are my current art crush! Serene, fluid, poetic and vibrant at the same time.....these paintings are a visual delight!

This is what kangraarts.org, an NGO working towards the preservation of this art form, shares on its website:

"The Kangra painting is one of the finest gifts of India to the art-world. In the middle of the 18th century A.D. when the plains of Northern India were convulsed by the invasion of Nadir Shah and Ahmad Shah Abdali, Raja Goverdhan Chand of Guler (Himachal Pradesh), a prince with refined tastes and passion for paintings gave asylum to the artistes trained in the Mughal style of painting, who further refined their skills under his patronage.

The courtly art of the Mughals underwent a radical change in the lovely valleys under the shadows of majestic Himalayas. In a setting, where the life was simple and the men and the women lived much closer to nature, the highly sophisticated art of the royal courts gained a new softness, delicacy, and human feelings. Instead of painting flattering portraits of their masters and hunting scenes, the artists adopted themes from love poetry of Jayadeva, Bihari and Keshavdas, who wrote ecstatically of the love of Radha and Krishna. This new and unique style of painting reached its zenith under the patronage of Raja Sansarchand of Kangra and was named as Kangra Painting."

Are you as bowled over as I am?! :)

Originally posted on our Facebook page on 7th March, 2015.