Gallery

Newar Mandala

ProMax

Newar painters in the Kathmandu Valley size cotton cloth with animal glue and kaolin, rule the construction with compass and straightedge, then paint it out solid in ground mineral — lapis, cinnabar, malachite, orpiment, gold. A mandala is not ornament here. It is a plan: nested rings inside a square palace with four cardinal gates.

This system takes that diagram literally. The page is the charnel ground, black with a blue cast. Every surface is a precinct with gated axes. Colour is mineral and opaque, edges are gold hairlines, and layout is built from the centre outward rather than from a left margin.

Learn more about the Newar Mandala style

  • OriginKathmandu Valley, Nepal — Newar workshops of Patan, Bhaktapur and Kathmandu
  • Period13th century onward; the Chakrasamvara mandala with Newar donors is a 15th-century type
  • DesignerJivarama · Tej Bahadur Chitrakar · Anandamuni Shakya · Lok Chitrakar
  • MovementsPaubha painting · Vajrayana mandala iconography · Newar workshop tradition

Web examples

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Slide examples

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