Late artist silpi was a unique man - he almost completely focussed on temples and temple art. He was a deeply religious person and his works are a class of their own.
Sofar nobody has taken any concrete steps to collect all of his works in one place. I'm afraid that they may be lost forever - already we might have lost many.
As we are deeply associated with temple studies - does it fit to add a related activity for the group in this direction ? we will work out specifics later.
Silpi did a marathon serial in Ananda Vikatan from 1948 to 1954 titled 'THENNAATTU SELVANGAL' visiting various temples and capturing the beauty of temple sculptures the way only he can do.
Due to my mother's tireless efforts I have the collection with me in 3 volumes, of course with some missing chapters.
> Silpi did a marathon serial in Ananda Vikatan from 1948 to 1954 > titled 'THENNAATTU SELVANGAL' visiting various temples and capturing > the beauty of temple sculptures the way only he can do.
It is this series that i was badly looking for. It is considered to be his masterpiece. Great that you have it.
My father is very deeply attached to silpi. He wrote to vikatan mr.balan to publish thennatuch chelvangal - baalan replied that he welcomed the idea but did not take it further
That reminds me - it was because of my great grand father's tireless efforts that I have the ORIGINAL - PONNIYINSELVAN WITH MANIYAM ARTS - AS IT WAS PUBLISHED IN 1950. Not just the novel - even the advertisements, kalki's comments about various films, saama's jokes adorn the pages in between.
If there is anything at my home which I would like to call "valuable asset" - it is this. I will digitize the entire collection for the original pages are becoming weak
I have been a silent member of this group for quite some time. I feel happy and proud to be a part of this group as we all share a common thought.
I have read a lot about Amarar Slipi, one worth mentioning is: It was Kanchi Shri Paramacharya who lead Silpi to the spiritual path, he advised Silpi that his great talent must not be used for drawing just mortals but instead he must dedicate all his talents and efforts to create everlasting impressions of immortal gods and goddess and temples. Silpi immediately took his advice and spent his entire life according to our Shri Kanchi Paramacharyas words. Parmacharyas words were true, to this day Silpi has left his immortal artistic impressions that can never be compared.
Amarar Silpi accepted Sri Padmavasan as his sishya. Quite often you can find Sri Padmavasans contributions on the (Kalki and other) Deepawali Malar, currently as artist he is following his Gurus tradition.
Anyways, I have some good news for you all. All of Amarar Silpis arts are safe and maintained well by his son Sri.Mahalingam. All Amarar Silpis paintings and line drawings are available for re-print.
If required we definitely can get them. I would be ready to help you all on this effort.
> Anyways, I have some good news for you all. All of Amarar Silpis arts > are safe and maintained well by his son Sri.Mahalingam. All Amarar > Silpis paintings and line drawings are available for re-print. > > If required we definitely can get them. I would be ready to help you > all on this effort.
It is really a great news. In that case we should moot up a project for publishing his entire collection as a book or something.
Currently our group is sized with the idea of thebigtemple.com. So the starting point would be to gather all silpi's drawings on big temple and publish it in our web site
I would like to request our members in chennai to meet mr.mahalingam and express our ideas.
To my knowledge, Sri Mahalingam must be having the copyright for all of Amarar Silpis work. I have heard that Sri Mahalingam is ready to provide the digital reprint of Amarar Silpis drawings for people who want to purchase them. So, I think it may involve some cost in getting it published on the website.
As Gokul says, our Chennai members can find out more on this. I will also share the info that I get.
For all who want to take a look at the imortal artists whom we have been talking about so far.. please take a look at the Silpi_Gopulu_Maniam.jpeg uploaded in our group.
It contains photos of Silpi, Gopulu and Maniam.
You all must be knowing, Amarar Maniam's son is still contributing in all magazines he is the well famous Mainam Selvan. He signs as "Ma Se".
I have also uploaded Amarar Silpi, Amarar Maniam and Shri Gopulus photos in our group album.
"A picture is worth thousand words" - I salute all these great men for bringing our Amarar Kalkis characters live in front of us, without these artists it would have been difficult for people like us to get an idea of how PS characters looked.
The detailing in his works are Marvelous...... Without him, no body have the real pic of our gods in their temples ( taking pic is prohibited) If any one can publish here the list of his works (even it is not fair to provide all his drawings in web - all will copy and some may sell it in open market) ... the places covered in Thennatu selvangal.... Any book specially publised in this name? If the Govt buy all his great work, and if it brings all for Public..... then it will be a great thing.
While reading PS in my college days, I have amazed to Maniam's drawings. But now while seeing that (here in the Photo section), it doesn't look much special. Once his son Mr.MaSe told me, Eventhough his Father's pics are great, His PS Pics reached great height because of the great writing of Amarar.Kalki.
Amarar Silpi's son Shri Mahalingam has the copyright for all Silpi's work. You can get digital copies of any of Amarar Silpis work including line drawings and paintings from Shri Mahalingam.
Here comes contact details for Amarar Silpi's son - Sri Mahalingam
Sri S. Mahalingam # 41/28, 70 Feet Road , Jawahar Nagar, Chennai - 600 082