Simrik: Colours of Poubha
- October 18th, 2008
- Posted in Features
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The traditional Poubha art still breathes at a small double-storied old house amidst the crowded streets of Patan Doka. And Lok Chitrakar’s hands are those that keep the dying art alive.
The Poubha paintings date back to the 4 th century but were faced with a threat during the 17 th century towards the end of Malla’s era with the drying up patronage and consequent weakening of community structures in the valleys.
Meanwhile, the art form was carried to Tibet. It was there the Thangka took birth from the Poubha style.
The Thangka has gained immense popularity worldwide with its linkage to Buddhism but today’s generation mostly unaware of Poubha paintings, said Lok Chitrakar.
The Poubha genre developed as a unique heritage of the Newars and is a visual interpretation of the Buddhist and Hindu philosophies as practiced in the Vajrayan tradition.
As per the ritual for painting, the artist must seclude himself from the materialistic world and must be pious and holy. The Poubha is created on a cotton cloth across a wooden frame. Water based colors grounded by hand from stones from the Himalayas, sable-hair brushes; gold and silver dusts are some of the tools used in the paintings.
Text by: Kuenzang Choden, (Journalist: Buthan) | Made for the Panos South Asia Multimedia Local Content Development Training Workshop 2008, Kathmandu. View the full multimedia presentation
To learn more: Panos Multimedia
A fascinating subject – one that I enjoyed learning more about. However, as my former mentor, Willie Kee, told me – zoom again and I’ll break all of your fingers. I realize you may have wanted to draw the audience into your subject with the zoom, but it was distracting. Either use a series of shots held longer so we can see the paintings and artists using cuts or slow dissolves – or if you must zoom, make it a barely noticeable zoom.
The story itself was very well produced and very educational.
Thank you Cyndy for that critique. Appreciate you taking the time.
After spending months on sites like yours and Angela Grant’s, trying to learn the basics of video, I thought I got the hang of it. The cardinal rule being – don’t zoom/pan unless absolutely necessary.
For the video sequences I shot for this piece, I made it a point to keep to this practice. Then I dropped in some still images I shot at Lok’s studio and BANG! – I forgot all about the rules of motion and went and added zooms to the stills like crazy in Premier!
Thanks to your critique I had a relook and realised the novice mistake I made.
I’ve now removed the zoom effects I had added to the still images and re-posted the video. For those who would like to see the original piece to understand the problem Cyndy is pointing out, please see the original video at: http://www.vimeo.com/1867967
Once again, thanks Cyndy, my fingers are still intact, but I’ve learnt my lesson
I am re-posting your story to my site. Thanks.
Jon C.
Did not know about the technical aspects of the presentation and the need not to zoom in too often to avoid distraction! Learnt that too from Cindy’s comments on the same.However, I must compliment you Gasper on your ability to delve into aspects of art, culture and traditions which are prevalent today and were so in the early days to a great extent, and document them before they actually die out! Another presentation that comes to my mind is the one done on the Spirits! You are really gifted there!
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