Handpainted – Indo-Bauhaus Painting – Deepmala, the Lamplit Palace

Provenance

'Deepmala' is a hand-painted artwork in the Indo-Bauhaus manner, depicting an ornate palace facade on a Diwali night, every ledge, niche and balcony strung with small flames beneath a full moon. The painting pairs the architectural vocabulary of historic north Indian palaces, with their domed pavilions, cusped arches, pierced stone screens and balustraded balconies, with the flat colour planes, simplified geometry and restrained palette associated with Bauhaus design. The result is less a portrait of a particular building than a quiet, ordered evocation of the festival of lights.

The facade rises in three tiers of pale stone. At the top, a central dome with a gold finial is flanked by two smaller domed pavilions, with a deep blue arched niche between slender gold columns holding a flowering plant motif. Below, a long balcony lined with diyas runs across the building, framing a central teal arch and two rust niches from which lamps hang on fine chains. The lowest tier holds a tall blue doorway with a further flowering motif, flanked by small arched niches with lamps and lotus panels, and a short flight of steps leads up to it. Rosettes, leafy panels and lattice windows are set into the stone throughout. Around the palace, stepped terraces in rust, slate and teal climb towards the edges like blocks of a modernist composition, lit by more diyas, while flowering trees with white blossoms rise at the upper left and right, a banana plant spreads at the lower left, and a large pale moon hangs in the deep blue sky. The lamps, repeated across every level, turn the whole building into the garland of light the title describes.

The palette sets warm ivory stone and rust against cool slate, teal and a deep night blue, with the many small flames providing points of golden light across the composition. The Indo-Bauhaus treatment is visible in the clean, blocky terraces and the flat, unshaded planes of colour, which give the traditional architecture a crisp, contemporary structure. A fine, grainy texture runs through the surfaces of the artwork shown; each piece is hand-painted to order, so brushwork, texture and tone will vary slightly from the image, as is natural in painted work.

Disclaimer:

• The frames shown are for display purposes only and are not included with the artwork.
• As these are made-to-order designer pieces, expect minor colour variations from the displayed artwork.