This Friday, 28 May 2021 an image of the earliest-surviving painting of the Hindu tradition will be revealed to the world. This will also showcase the significance of the forgotten tradition of ancient Indian painting to the world for the first time. It would mark another important milestone in painstaking efforts to conserve and restore—almost lost—ancient art and heritage.
The painting to be released- ‘Queen and Attendants’ is from cave no 3 of Badami Caves. This 6th century cave is located in Bagalkote district of Karnataka. Painting was photographed and then digitally restored by well known photographer and documentary film maker Benoy K Behl in 2001. It will later be preserved in Arctic World Archives by Sapio Analytics.
Sapio Analytics is a prominent government advisory firm based out of India and with offices in UK and USA. In October last year, it deposited a unique Ajanta photograph of Benoy K Behl at the Arctic World Archives, Norway. Located at Svalbard, Arctic World Archives is considered to be a safe repository for world memory. It has been designed to withstand natural and man-made disasters, at the safest location on earth, data stored here will last for centuries.
Benoy K. Behl is an Indian documentary filmmaker, art historian and photographer known for his work in documenting the art heritage of India and Asia. He has taken more than 53,000 photographs of Asian monuments and has produced more than 145 documentaries which are regularly screened at major cultural institutions worldwide. His photographic exhibitions have been warmly received in 74 countries around the world.
In January, 2008, National Geographic magazine carried an 18-page story about ancient Indian art revealed through Behl’s photography to the world. He is the first Indian about whose work National Geographic magazine have carried a story. BBC World News also carried 3 major stories about Behl’s pioneering work in India and Vietnam.
The Badami Cave painting holds a very special relevance in global art and culture. It is not only the earliest surviving Hindu painting, but it also helps to establish one of the greatest traditions of the art of painting in the ancient world. This is of global significance and importance. This painting highlights India’s valuable role in creating the art and culture of the world.
Descriptions of the Badami paintings in the 1950s included paintings which were lost by the time. Benoy K Behl reached there to photograph in 2001. When National Geographic Magazine was doing a story about Behl’s work in 2008, its team could hardly even see those paintings which Behl had seen and photographed in 2001. Therefore, this photography and restoration is of considerable importance in the documentation of the tradition of Indian paintings.
His painstaking digital restoration of the Badami paintings has made this art more visible to the eyes. Sapio will now be showing these earliest, previously unknown, Hindu paintings to the world in the online event to be organised on 28 May 2021. It will also release a White Paper on the ‘Earliest Surviving Hindu Painting of the 6th century, in the Badami Caves’.