Indian Painting: Preparation Strategy and Resources

India has always been a land where cultural and traditional vibrancy resonates through its conventional arts and crafts. There is wide diversity in language dialect art and traditions. The signature of diversity is also found in India’s paintings and sculptures. Painting is considered one of the most delicate forms of art that are used to give expression to human thoughts and feelings through the medium of line and color. The painting history has originated from rock paintings and carried through pottery, in textiles, miniature paintings and finally with modern paintings. From rock painting to modern painting the there is a vivid depiction of human emotions and a glimpse of contemporary culture and traditions.

UPSC Preliminary exam tests an individual on varied dimensions. Indian art questions form an important segment of art and culture. Every year there are one to two questions from this section or sometimes no question appears. However, it remains difficult to find suitable readings for Indian art.  It will be easier to study Indian art if it is divided as per chronology.

Paintings in India was started in the ancient period, since the pre-historic era. The painting history has originated from rock paintings and carried through pottery, in textiles, miniature paintings and finally with modern paintings. The diversity in the style of paintings in different parts of the country indicates the diversity in culture as culture and livelihood being the themes of paintings and later dominated by Religion.

The major inspiration for paintings in India was the birth of three religions – Hinduism, Buddhism, and Jainism. The major influence has been the deep-rooted history, culture, and foreign races, etc..

Once the areas have been defined the major hurdle remaining is the source and books that should be followed while studying art forms. But before analyzing this we need to divide it into static and dynamic portions. As far as the static portion is concerned the NCERT books remain the savior. Apart from this NIOS websites also remains a good source of information. For the dynamic portion, one needs to follow The Hindu newspaper strictly.  The previous year's question papers will help you to understand the pattern of questions. The most important stage is to interlink static and dynamic portions as the previous trend of UPSC has emphasized such kinds of questions that are having an amalgamation of static and dynamic knowledge. Last but not least is to revise the entire UPSC Syllabus and notes holistically so that the entire knowledge can be put forward at the time of the exam.

GS SCORE PRELIMS SAMPOORNA Fact File on Painting in India can become a turning point at last time This fact file covers topics like prehistoric art, Sultanate painting, Regional painting which can appear in Prelims 2021. This fact file can act as a Revision module before the IAS Prelims examination.