Thursday, July 20, 2006




These photos is meant to go with yesterdays post[ but old blogger was having a bad hair day and I could not upload it??]

The first one is the entrance to the temples at Galta[ also known as the Monkey temple because many monkey tribes live in the valley and are happy for you to feed them].at the top of the valley is a temple where priests have maintained a continuous chant for 100's of years and a little past that is a lovely temple to Suyra, the Sun and a fantastic view over Jaipur.

The secong one is the top of the Hawa Mahal or Palace of the Winds. so beautiful and you can see how wide it is from this shot. it is 5 stories high and built so the ladies of the court could see what was happening in the market place whilst not being seen themselves.

Jaipur's architecture is a place of fairtales- looking at the patterning every where in India has helped me understand patterning a lot more.

i have this ingrained sort of Modernist idea that if you pattern something it is somehow less serious- the serious work cuts right to the bone. and I must say growing up in a house where fashion and my mother went for rather loud wallpaper added to that idea- the very endless repitition of the pattern without change used to leave me feeling like i could not breathe.

At Ranakpur there are some wonderful Jain temples- all carved white marble. 1444 pillars hold these temples up and each is similar to all the rest in size but each sports a different design.

noticing that is when the penny dropped-it is the similar but different that gives it a living quality.

when i go out to the desert you might think at first the landscape is monotomous but take time to look it is full i subtle variations and there lies its beauty.

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