Inner courtyard, painted rooms, Ground floor, King’s Palace, Orchha Fort, Orchha, Madhya Pradesh, India.
Travel and tourism are really such mediums that connect us with the past. We get mesmerized to see the work done in the past on traditions, cultures, lifestyle, awareness about water conservation, security, art, architecture etc.
The rulers of Orchha were followers of Hindu religion, as well as patrons of the arts including poetry, painting, dance and architecture. Raja Bharti Chand, whose reign was around 1531 to 1554, had built a grand square Mahal for his residence, which is the inner part of the king’s palace. The walls and ceilings of the six rooms are richly decorated with paintings in the Bundela style at the ground floor around the inner courtyard. These paintings celebrate the incarnations of Vishnu, the beloved presiding deity of the Bundelas, and scenes from the Ramayana. Natural colours were used like blue, red, yellow, brown, black etc to depict the mythological stories still splendid.
These pictures are attractive even today and introduce tourists interested in painting to Bundela painting, as the Chitrashala located in Bundi in Rajasthan represents the painting art developed in Bundi, similarly these pictures represents of Bundela style.