Sikh Paintings

Sikh Paintings are wonderful example of the beauty and class of Indian paintings. Sikh paintings found themselves patronized by Maharaja Ranjit Singh, who was renowned art lover. He is credited to give the eternal beauty to Golden Temple by hiring several talented painters to decorate the walls and the panels of it. Since then, Sikh paintings have never looked back. Portraits are the main theme of these paintings. One can easily find portraits of several historical characters and events. Through these portraits, one can figure out political upheaval of Sikhism and many other central figures that played important parts in its history. Sikh paintings are categorized into three distinct classes; Kangra School, Guler School and Lahore School.

 

Guler Paintings is a unique mixture of Mughal style of paintings and Hindu painters of Guler. Guler painters are renowned for creating both dawn and dusk on the same canvas. Slowly, Guler painters became a master of both Rajput themes as well as Sikh themes which reflects in their paintings. Kangra paintings are more of spiritual in nature. Their themes often reflect Vaishnavism. Apart from having elegance in these paintings, they are also known for subtlety of colors and delicate paintings. Third school is Lahore school of painting which is again extremely different from other styles of paintings.  

 

Some famous Sikh painters were; Gian Singh who had created world famous fresco paintings in the Golden Temple. Pandit Bihari was another great Sikh painter.  Amongst contemporary paintes, renowned ones are Sobha singh, S. Kripal singh and S.G.Thakur singh.