History
The fall of the Vijayanagar Empire in 1565 A.D resulted initially in distress for scores of families of painters who had been dependent on the patronage of the empire. However Raja Wodeyar I (1578–1617 A.D) provided a vital service to the cause of painting by rehabilitating several families of painters of the Vijayanagara School at Srirangapatna.
The successors of Raja Wodeyar continued to patronize the art of painting by commissioning the temples and palaces to be painted with mythological scenes. However none of these paintings have survived due to Hyder Ali and Tippu Sultan’s ascendance to power and the consequent ravages of war between them and the British. After the death of Tippu Sultan in 1799 AD the state was restored to its original royal family of Mysore and it’s ruler Mummadi Krishnaraja Wodeyar III (1799-1868 A.D.) ushered in a new era by reviving the ancient traditions of Mysore and extending patronage to music, sculpture, painting,dancing and literature. Most of the traditional paintings of the Mysore School, which have survived until today, belong to this reign. On the walls of Jagan Mohan Palace, Mysore (Karnataka), the fascinating range of paintings which flourished under Krishnaraja Wodeyar can be seen; from portraits of the Mysore rulers, their family members and important personages in Indian history, through self-portraits of the artists themselves which Krishnaraja Wodeyar coaxed them to paint, to murals depicting the Hindu pantheon and Puranic and mythological scenes.
Read more about this topic: Mysore Painting
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