Through the centuries Nepal has been well known for its rich artistic and cultural development intimately bound up with the Newar population. The Newar Chitrakars, and one clan of them in particular, have specialized in revealing the world in form and colour with all its array of wonders, that can be admired even today. Generations of these artists have kept up their work, and thereby helped to form the fundamental richness of the cultural heritage of Nepal.

Apart from influences from Tibet, the kingdom of Nepal was shaped above all by the socio-political, religious and cultural sway of India. Nevertheless, Nepal retained its own identity. The rule of Jayastithi Malla (1382-1395) brought a change, in the form of a new system oriented towards India's Hinduism that divided the inhabitants of the valley into profession-based castes. It was then that the Pun (or Chitrakar) painters aquired the caste status that would remain within up to the middle of the 20th century.
At the end of the 19th century, and more particularly at the beginning of the 20th century, the Chitrakar painters, instead of Pun, Pune or Pu, (soll chinese word for best artist) the Newari name for painter, started calling themselves by the Nepali equivalent, Citrakár (Anglicized to Chitrakar).

Traditionally the Chitrakars in general were given exclusive rights to certain aspects of the Nepalese society. Up to the present they paint for example at houses and public places, they draw religious pictures and create ritual masks and ceremonial vessels for festivals and other religious occasions.

Some of the elite among the Chitrakars were also famous for their delicate frescoes in temples and palaces as well as for their paubha paintings (religious scrolls) and iconographical illustrations. Furthermore they were masters in drawing portraits, specially during the Malla and Shah period, later also including the European styles of the 19th century, and this specially after the Rana rulers introduced them to European art and even took them to England and France. The Chitrakars moreover became photographers at the end of the 19th century, initially taught by members of the Rana society. Hard though it may have been, they were experts at adapting to the demand for contemporary artistic work placed by their commissioners.

The practice of shielding the land from outside cultural influences that had been pursued by the late Malla kings (1382-1768) and the Shahs (1769-1846) harboured great advantages for the various painting traditions of the Newar Chitrakars. Because of it the uniquely Nepalese tradition of producing sketch-books with drawings of religious content, for example, was preserved, since the Chitrakar painters who were involved in the work remained at the time only moderately affected by other cultures and their traditions. Examples of sketch-books are included in the exhibition.

At the beginning of the 19th century, however, interest in Western culture slowly began to develop among the country's ruling families. Bhimsen Thapa (1772 or 1779-1839) for example, the prime minister of the country, had palatial residences built for himself in the classical Newar style, with influences of the Moguls as well as European Neoclassicism even before the Rana families. In his former residence in Chauni is now located Nepal's National Museum, and there are found the portraits of him executed by the Chitrakars under the influence of Mogul painting, but left unsigned in accordance with the custom of the time.

The cultural changes in Nepal under the Ranas (1846-1951) were sweeping. To be sure, tradition, art and culture were not threatened under the Rana dynasty, but nonetheless the Nepalese aristocracy nourished a growing taste for Western cultural and consumer goods, which they used to represent their power (see illustration 'Portrait of Maharaja Bir Shamsher'). In painting, they were drawn to the naturalism of English artists and an infiltration of mundane motifs into the religious art of Nepal began.

The first time a Newar artist travelled abroad was when Bhaju Man, a painter of the Chitrakar caste, formed part of the entourage during Maharaja Jang Bahadur Rana's journey to England and France in 1850 - a turning point in the esteem in which Nepalese artists were held, who had hitherto remained anonymous, given that their fundamentally religiously motivated work was not judged as an artistic achievement but as merit earned towards a better rebirth, the goal being the attaining of Nirvana.

A reevaluation of the idea of art occurred in Nepal, namely away from a type of art motivated by myth and religion towards works that served personal edification, and hence were purely aesthetic in nature. In the following years various schools and tendencies arose within this new direction art had taken, and which the Chitrakar painters had pioneered.

The cabinet exhibition 'The Heritage of Chitrakars - 2000', jointly organised by the Chitrakar Society and the HimalAsia Foundation, presents some examples of this traditional historic legacy, showing traditional portrait paintings, iconographical paintings, scrolls and manuscripts, embracing the late Malla period and Shah dynasty as well as the early Rana time. The exponates are partly showing the idealizing, two-dimensional character of Mogul influence seen in the portraits paintings, even in the early times of the Rana period that were replaced with the beginning of european impacts more and more by naturalistic motifs under a logic of spatial perspective, using moreover new techniques like oil colours and water colours that were the media of choice.

Susanne von der Heide