The Colas c35.s2.3

c35.s2.3

From the standpoint of the technique employed, the South Indian paintings stand apart from the better known paintings of Ajaṇṭā, Sigiriya, Bāgh, Bādāmi and Ellora. Here the ground-plaster is of coarser lime mortar below with a finer coat of lime wash above it on which the pigments have been laid in accordance with the 'fresco' or 'lime medium' technique. The absence of any adhesive such as gum or glue in the laying of the pigments is the important feature that distinguishes them from the painting in the Deccan and Ceylon. There the ground-plaster is of mud—clay or alluvium, and sand mixed with very small quantities of lime and containing organic materials like cowdung and husks or vegetable fibres acting as 'binding medium'; this ground-plaster is covered by a lime wash of egg-shell thickness and painted with mineral colours mixed with glue or gum as a fixitive; the technique is 'tempera' and the painting could be done after the lime wash had dried up. In Śittannavāśal on the other hand, the ground-plaster is a mixture of lime and sand forming a coarse ground with a thin layer of fine lime-plaster over it; on this the paintings have been executed in mineral colours without the mixture of any adhesive. Since on examination the colours appear to have been mixed in lime water and applied on the dried up surface, this is strictly 'fresco-secco', different from true fresco work where the paint is applied on the still wet lime surface, a very good example of which we find in the Tanjore Cōḻa paintings. All the other paintings in the South Indian series found in the temples of Mamandur, Tirumayam, Kāñcī, Nārttāmalai, Somapālayam, Lepākṣi, Tirugōkarṇam, Malaiyaḍipaṭṭi, Travancore, Cochin and elsewhere belong to the class of fresco-secco.⁶¹