Frescos

Visitors may observe several beautiful frescos (paintings on a plaster base) on walls and ceilings throughout the Brihadishwara temple. The most recent ones are Maratha period works from the 18th century with the best example being the richly hued ceiling of the Nandi Mandapam and the Subrahmanya Shrine.

Vivid frescos from the 17th century Nayaka period line the walls of the colonnaded Thiruchutra Maligai as well as the walls and ceiling of the Maha Mandapam. Preserved frescos from the inside of the Vimana may be seen in the temple’s Interpretation Center.

However, it is the Chola frescos that have the most complex and fascinating history of all the artwork in the temple complex. In 1931, a young professor from Annamalai University, S.K. Govindasamy, was examining the dark, seven-foot-wide passage around the sanctum of the temple by the light of his “Baby Petromax” lantern looking for evidence of Chola murals. At first, all he saw were the 17th century Nayaka paintings and was about to give up on his quest. As he was completing his examination, he noticed an area on the western side of the passage where the plaster was cracked. When he scraped off a few of the peeling flakes, he found an amazing trove of 1000 year old Chola paintings.

In a subsequent newspaper article, he wrote:

“…It has been my great good fortune to bring to light the hitherto unknown frescos of the Imperial Chola period, in the Brihadeswaraswami Temple, popularly known as ‘the Big Temple of Tanjore.’ 

“It was almost a year since I visited that noble temple one evening, …when in the dim religious light of a small oil lamp I felt, as it were, the existence of some kind of paintings on the walls on either side of a dark narrow circumambulatory passage around the sanctum sanctorum. 

“But it was only yesterday I found it convenient to examine the place more thoroughly with the help of a ‘Baby Petromax’ whose bright light revealed paintings indeed but paintings of an undoubtedly very late and degenerate age, whose linear contortions and chromatic extravagances shattered in a moment all my wonderful dreams of discovering there the best and the only example of the art of Chola mural paintings. 

“Still I chose a part of the western wall for close inspection and found the painted plastering there cracked all over and threatening to fall down. A gentle touch and the whole mass crumbled down, exposing underneath a fine series of frescos palpitating with the life of other days.”

In the 1980s, after much scientific and scholarly work on preservation of these two sets of frescos, the Archaeological Survey of India’s chemical branch developed a revolutionary technique for preserving murals. Using an Italian conservation technique called ‘destucco’, they embarked on a journey of removing the Nayaka paintings in an intact layer revealing the Chola paintings underneath. Around 16 paintings have been painstakingly restored to date. The upper layer of Nayak paintings was removed and displayed on fiberglass boards in the Temple Interpretation Center (Map Reference 8).

Chola artists used the tempera method in creating their murals. A smooth batter of limestone and other materials was applied over the stones of the walls and allowed to dry slowly over a period of two to three days. While the plaster was setting up, the artists drew outlines in light red and brown and then filled in the paintings with natural organic pigments including red and yellow ochre, terre-verde, and lapis lazuli blue.

The frescos in the Brihadishwara temple depict scenes from Hindu mythology. Lord Shiva is primarily featured, though there are paintings of Lord Vishnu, Goddess Durga, Goddess Kali and images of the Chola kings as well. Some of the most well-known frescos include: