About the book – This book is a humble effort to relive that era in which this treasure of aesthetics and creativity took place and draw a map for the generations to come. The endeavor has been to delve deep in the era and be the one with the impulse of the artists who produced such amazing works even in their naivete and innocence with a spontaneity that is known only to a child. Along with this there is great creativity and abstraction in the paintings, which even those who have formally gone to art schools to learn painting. I have also tried to understand the life-style of the artists of the era gone by. Mine is a simple effort to preserve and cherish these vanishing treasures. It is a journey to the times when these artists painted myth and reality on the ceilings and the walls of the havelis. It is an interaction with everlasting hues of pigments and compositions created with passion.
About the author
- Ram Partap Verma grew up fascinated by the wall paintings of the numerous havelis of his hometown Bhiwani, Haryana. Art was all around him in the town situated on the border of Rajasthan and he took it to be a way of life. He watched his mother painting images of Gugga Pir pr Gangaur festivals, related respectively to snake-worship and veneration Shakti or womanhood, on the walls of their home. He played with monkey-rattles and cloth toys made by her.
As a schoolboy the art class was his favorite and he loved to paint portraits of the film stars he idolized. He also got in touch with local wall painters and two wall paintings made by him with natural pigments are still preserved in his school. Even before joining the Chandigarh Art College, he painted cinema hoardings and signboards in his hometown. Formal professional training honed his skills and talents he turned to teaching art but never at the cost of his own painting.
