Jain Miniature Paintings from Western India c10.s4.5

c10.s4.5

Indian painters treated colours as necessary adjuncts to clever linear composition. There were five primary colours—white, yellow, red, black and blue. The trained artists could, however, attain hundred different shades by clever admixture. The white is classified according to its various degrees of luminosity: white brilliant as gold, pure sandal white, autumnal cloud white, and autumnal moon-white.⁷⁴ The varieties of śyāma (dark)⁷⁵ are twelve, namely, reddish, greenish, grayish, tawny, topaz, priyaṅgu creeper dark, monkey dark, blue lotus shade, blue of the Nilkaṇṭha bird, purple lotus shade, and cloud gray. These dark shades were used in accordance with the colours of the objects.