Wall Paintings in North Kerala

A bilingual book on wall paintings in Malabar.
by Albrecht Frenz and K. K. Marar
Arnoldsche Verlagsanstalt GmbH
Pages: 208 Price: $47.25 Hardcover
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Kerala possesses numerous temples, many of them unknown. From the 12th century on down to the present, artists have been painting religious pictures in brilliant colours on the external walls of these temples. These paintings attest to intense joie de vivre conveyed by Hindu myth and legend.

For thirty years the scholar and photographer K. K. Marar has studied the wall-paintings in the Kerala temples. Belonging to the caste of temple drummers, he is admitted to temple precincts which would not be accessible to unauthorised persons. His co-author, Albrecht Frenz, is a German theologian and specialist in Indian languages and literature who has researched in southern India for decades.

Fascinating illustrations and texts convey profound insights into the myths of Hinduism, making the legends about the origins of the gods and the creation of the world come alive in a brilliantly colourful and sensuous pictorial idiom. A major cultural heritage which has remained largely unknown.

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