Pahari painting is an umbrella term used for a form of Indian painting

Indian painting

Indian painting has a very long history, although the seasonally humid Indian climate was difficult for the long-term preservation of paintings and there are far fewer survivals than of other forms of Indian art. The earliest Indian paintings were the rock paintings of pre-historic times, the...

, originating from Himalayan Hill kingdoms of North India, during 17th-19th century. Notably Basohli, Mankot, Nurpur

Nurpur

Nurpur is a city and a municipal council in Kangra district in the Indian state of Himachal Pradesh. It was formerly a Kingdom ruled by the Pathania clan of Rajputs, since the 11th century AD. The capital of the Kingdom was at Pathankot, now in Punjab....

, Chamba

Chamba, Himachal Pradesh

Chamba is an ancient town in the Chamba district in the state of Himachal Pradesh, in northern India. According to the 2001 Indian census, Chamba has a population of 20,312 people...

, Kangra, Guler

Haripur Guler

Haripur is a township in Kangra district in the Indian state of Himachal Pradesh. Haripur Guler are twin townships carrying the heritage of Guler Riyasat...

, Mandi, and Garhwal

Garhwal Kingdom

Garhwal Kingdom was a princely state in north-western Uttarakhand, India, ruled by the Panwar dynasty. It was founded in 888 AD and existed until it was annexed by the Gorkhas in 1803...

, and was done mostly in miniature forms .

Origin and area

The Pahari school developed and flourished during 17th-19th centuries stretching from Jammu

Jammu

Jammu , also known as Duggar, is one of the three administrative divisions within Jammu and Kashmir, the northernmost state in India.Jammu city is the largest city in Jammu and the winter capital of Jammu and Kashmir...

 to Almora

Almora

Almora is a municipal board, a cantonment town in the Almora district in the state of Uttarakhand, India. Almora was founded in 1568.It is a town bustling with activity and a rich cultural heritage and history. It is considered the cultural heart of the Kumaon region of...

 and Garhwal

Garhwal Kingdom

Garhwal Kingdom was a princely state in north-western Uttarakhand, India, ruled by the Panwar dynasty. It was founded in 888 AD and existed until it was annexed by the Gorkhas in 1803...

, in the sub-Himalayan

Himalayas

The Himalaya Range or Himalaya Mountains Sanskrit: Devanagari: हिमालय, literally "abode of snow"), usually called the Himalayas or Himalaya for short, is a mountain range in Asia, separating the Indian subcontinent from the Tibetan Plateau...

 India

India

India , officially the Republic of India , is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by geographical area, the second-most populous country with over 1.2 billion people, and the most populous democracy in the world...

, through Himachal Pradesh

Himachal Pradesh

Himachal Pradesh is a state in Northern India. It is spread over , and is bordered by the Indian states of Jammu and Kashmir on the north, Punjab on the west and south-west, Haryana and Uttar Pradesh on the south, Uttarakhand on the south-east and by the Tibet Autonomous Region on the east...

, and each creating stark variations within the genre, ranging from bold intense Basohli Painting, originating from Basohli in Jammu and Kashmir

Jammu and Kashmir

Jammu and Kashmir is the northernmost state of India. It is situated mostly in the Himalayan mountains. Jammu and Kashmir shares a border with the states of Himachal Pradesh and Punjab to the south and internationally with the People's Republic of China to the north and east and the...

, to the delicate and lyrical Kangra paintings

Kangra paintings

Kangra painting is the pictorial art of Kangra, named after Kangra, Himachal Pradesh, a former princely state, which patronized the art. It became prevalent with the fading of Basohli school of painting in mid-18th century , and soon produced such a magnitude in paintings both in content as well as...

, which became synonymous to the style before other schools of paintings developed, which reached its pinnacle with paintings of Radha and Krishna, inspired by Jayadev's Gita Govinda

Gita Govinda

The Gita Govinda is a work composed by the 12th-century poet, Jayadeva, who was born in Kenduli Sasan near Puri in Orissa. It describes the relationship between Krishna and the gopis of Vrindavana, and in particular one gopi named Radha...

.

It gave birth to a new idiom in Indian painting, and grew out of the Mughal painting

Mughal painting

Mughal painting is a particular style of South Asian painting, generally confined to miniatures either as book illustrations or as single works to be kept in albums, which emerged from Persian miniature painting, with Indian Hindu, Jain, and Buddhist influences, and developed largely in the court...

, though this was patronized mostly by the Rajput kings who ruled many parts of the region .

Schools of Pahari painting

• Guler School
• Kangra School
  Kangra paintings
  Kangra painting is the pictorial art of Kangra, named after Kangra, Himachal Pradesh, a former princely state, which patronized the art. It became prevalent with the fading of Basohli school of painting in mid-18th century , and soon produced such a magnitude in paintings both in content as well as...
  
  
• Basohli School
• Chamba School
  Chamba
  Chamba may refer to:*Chamba, Himachal Pradesh, city in Himachal Pradesh, India*Chamba district, Himachal Pradesh, India*Chamba State, princely state*Chamba, Uttarakhand, small town in Tehri-Garhwal district, Uttarakhand, India...
  
  
• Garhwal
  Garhwal Division
  Garhwal is the north-western region and administrative division of the northern Indian state of Uttarakhand which is home to the Garhwali people. Lying in the Himalayas, It is bounded on the north by Tibet, on the east by Kumaon region, on the south by Uttar Pradesh state, and on the north-west by...
  
   School

Further reading

• Pahari Masters: Court Painters of Northern India by B. N. Goswamy and Eberhard Fischer Artibus Asiae. Supplementum, Vol. 38, Pahari Masters: Court Painters of Northern India (1992), pp. 3-391 http://www.jstor.org/pss/1522698
• Wall Paintings of The Western Himalayas, by Mira Seth. Publications Division . 1976.
• Garhwal Paintings, by Mukandi Lal. Publications Division. 1982.
• Punjab Painting - Study in Art and Culture, by R P Srivastava. Abhinav Publications. 1983. ISBN 0391025600.
• Centres of Pahari Painting, by Chandramani Singh. Published by Abhinav Publications, 1982. ISBN 0391024124.
• Portfolio - The Bhagavata Paintings from Mankot, by Karl Khandalavala. Lalit Kala Akademi
  Lalit Kala Akademi
  The Lalit Kala Akademi or National Academy of Art is India's National Academy of Arts. It was an autonomous organization, established at New Delhi in 1954 by Government of India to promote and propagate understanding of Indian art, both within and outside the country...
  
  . 1981.
• On the origins of Pahari Painting, by Vishwa Chander Ohri, Joseph Jacobs. Indian Institute of Advanced Study. 1991. ISBN 8185182531.