R. K. de Silva, courtesy of Art Sri Lanka
Most of the indigenous artists appears to have been restricted to temple murals and drawings on cloth, such as flags and banners. Of the few of these artists who painted in the water colour medium, the traditions of temple art have been maintained, the colours being generally confined to white, red, yellow, black and more rarely, blue. The lack of perspective is also very evident. Ananda Commaraswamy in his erudite work “Mediaeval Sinhalese Art” says that there are no drawings on Sinhalese paper, which was very coarse and rough. The only drawings and manuscripts which have been preserved, are on Dutch, and late, English paper. Coomaraswamy mentions that he was acquainted with only two paper manuscripts, one written on 158 leaves of Dutch paper and containing a selection of discourses of the Buddha and said to have been used by King Narendra Singha as a prayer book, another, on 150 leaves, written in 1811 by Iruyagama Dharmadassi and affording and interesting side-light into Kandyan court life.Both these books are illustrated, the painting being typical examples of the Kandyan style of the 18th century. Continue reading
