Notes Illustrating Paintings
By Unexhibited
Summary
The concluding section provides capsule captions and notes for a suite of illustrated figures and plates (c. 12th–19th century), identifying subjects, dates, media and iconographic details. The entries cover images such as Lord Pārśvanātha with serpent hood (Palm-leaf, c. 1150), folios from Kalpa Sūtra sets (15th–16th c.), scenes from the Kālakācārya-kathā cycle, and narrative vignettes of Mahāvīra’s austerities, trials and enlightenment. Each note decodes compositional registers—upper and lower panels, enthroned deities, attendants—along with attributes (conch, mace, serpent), architectural frames, and landscape motifs like stylized mountains and trees. Many notes cross-reference the textual episodes summarized earlier (e.g., hair-plucking, five-fire penance), effectively turning the plates into a visual syllabus for Jain sacred history. Collectively, the annotations teach readers how to “read” Western Indian miniatures: look for the square picture field, forceful contour and saturated grounds; identify narrative anchors; and observe the conventionalized yet expressive gestures that guide the eye through moral action and meditative stillness.
Conclusion
Figure-by-figure notes teach visual literacy for Jain miniatures, aligning iconography with texts and clarifying dates, media and narrative conventions.