[Mission 2023] STATIC QUIZ, 2 June 2023 – Art and Culture

Solution: c)

Amukthamalyada describes the story of wedding of the Hindu Lord Vishnu and Andal the Tamil Alvar poet and daughter of Periyalvar, at Srirangam.

• It is basically an epic poem in Telugu composed by Krishnadevaraya of the Vijayanagara dynasty.
• Krishnadevaraya was a great patron of arts and a great scholar himself.

Solution: b)

• The granite rocks of Karnataka and Andhra Pradesh provided suitable canvases to the Neolithic man for his paintings.
• There are several such sites but more famous among them are Kupgallu, Piklihal and Tekkalkota.
• Three types of paintings have been reported from here– paintings in white, paintings in red ochre over a white background and paintings in red ochre.

Solution: b)

Statement 1 is incorrect.

The themes of the paintings are the events from the life of the Buddha, the Jatakas and the Avadanas. Some paintings such as Simhala Avadana, Mahajanaka Jataka and Vidhurpundita Jataka cover the entire wall of the cave.

The other important paintings are the famous Padmapani and Vajrapani. Figures in these caves are painted with considerable naturalism and there is no over-stylisation.

Solution: c)

• Warli painting derives its name from a small tribe inhabiting the remote, tribal regions of Maharashtra.
• These are decorative paintings on floors and walls of ‘gond’ and ‘kol’ tribes’ homes and places of worship. Trees, birds, men and women collaborate to create a composite whole in a Warli painting.
• These paintings are made mostly by the women as part of their routine at auspicious celebrations.

• Subjects are drawn with simple and local materials like white colour and rice paste and local vegetable glue on a plain contrasting background, made in a geometric pattern like squares, triangles and circles.
• Dots and crooked lines are the units of these compositions. Flora and fauna and people’s day-to-day life also form a part of the painting.
• The paintings are expanded by adding subject after subject in a spiralling manner. The rhythm of the Warli way of life is beautifully captured in simple images.
• Marriage is the most recurring theme of Warli paintings.
• Men and women dancing in circles (Tarapa Dance), during various celebrations, is another theme typical to the Warli paintings.
• A musician playing a native instrument is usually found in the middle of such spirals (Tarapa). Flora and fauna are also depicted in these paintings.

Solution: d)

The first references to dance come from the Vedas where dance and music have their roots. The history of dance can be reconstructed from the epics, several Puranas and rich body of dramatic and poetic literature known as the nataka and the kavya in Sanskrit.