I have been planning for a long time to visit India’s largest repository of prehistoric art in the Bhimbetka caves.
Silence engulfed us as we strolled into the caves. All around us were surfeit of painted scenes scattered across the fantastically shaped sandstone rock shelters. The rock paintings have numerous layers belonging to various epochs of time, ranging from the Upper Palaeolithic, Mesolithic Age to the protohistoric periods. Executed mainly in red and white with themes taken from the everyday events thousands of years ago, the scenes depict hunting, dancing, horse and elephant riders, animal fights, honey collection, decoration of bodies, disguises, masks and an amazing array of animals. The emotion is often raw and palpable, whether it is a victorious horseback hunter or a swaying dancer.
These paintings offer enchanting insights into the psyche and lives of people who inhabited these caves. Evoking in the process, the perennial relations between individual consciousness and the world around.
Eons ago artists touched
These stony walls
And by dying light
Sketched these figures
On a vast canvas
Of primal imagination
The wonder lasts
Deep in the caves
That lie unexplored
In all of us . . .
Glimpses at:
https://goo.gl/photos/wUzMUREppNebib7r9
Silence engulfed us as we strolled into the caves. All around us were surfeit of painted scenes scattered across the fantastically shaped sandstone rock shelters. The rock paintings have numerous layers belonging to various epochs of time, ranging from the Upper Palaeolithic, Mesolithic Age to the protohistoric periods. Executed mainly in red and white with themes taken from the everyday events thousands of years ago, the scenes depict hunting, dancing, horse and elephant riders, animal fights, honey collection, decoration of bodies, disguises, masks and an amazing array of animals. The emotion is often raw and palpable, whether it is a victorious horseback hunter or a swaying dancer.
These paintings offer enchanting insights into the psyche and lives of people who inhabited these caves. Evoking in the process, the perennial relations between individual consciousness and the world around.
Eons ago artists touched
These stony walls
And by dying light
Sketched these figures
On a vast canvas
Of primal imagination
The wonder lasts
Deep in the caves
That lie unexplored
In all of us . . .
Glimpses at:
https://goo.gl/photos/wUzMUREppNebib7r9
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