Many people are not aware of the sense of architecture around them,” says Plainsboro artist Murali Harathi. “I feel that I am bringing my understanding of the medium into an art that is otherwise missing.”
Harathi, who is also an architect and construction engineer, has been painting for over 20 years. The Plainsboro Public Library holds an exhibition of his renderings of royal palaces of India entitled “Pushing Past: The Royal Palaces of Hyderabad,” from Saturday, November 6, through Sunday, December 5. Harathi presents a visual “tour” of Indian architectural sites at a Gallery Artchat on Sunday, November 21, at 3 p.m.
“The exhibition was timed to take place during the Diwali seaons,” says Harathi, referring to the Indian festival of color. “These are glamourous paointings of that time that bring lots of color to the season.”
Harathi, who was born and raised in India and came to the United States in 1999, paints with an eye on a bygone architectural era. The 20 paintings on display offer a glimpse into the imperial riches and opulent palaces that were built in India between the 1880s and the 1920s.
The paintings transport the viewers back to the late 19th century when maharajas held dominion over much of India. Sir Mahaboob Ali Khan, for example, was the sixth Nizam of Hyderabad. He owned a series of diamond mines and was reputed the be the richest man in the world. Opulent rulers of the age built such palaces throughout India.
The grand buildings in Harathi’s watercolors, replicated with the artist’s precise linear detail and a delicate use of color, serve as examples of the lavish synthesization of the Indian, Islamic, and British architecture of the period.
“India, and particulary the city of Hyderabad, was very cosmopolitan between 1880 and 1920,” says Harathi, adding that his paintings bear the identity of different cultures, from medieval to contemporary. “The architecture of this time is very unique. In India, over 90 percent of the population were Hindu. The rulers, however, were Islamic. But India was also under colonial rule, and the British were regulating all of what was happening in India. So the architecture has a Hindu, Islamic, and British influence that is very unique.”
Harathi says that much of India’s architectural heritage is being lost to climate as well as some of the more unsavory by-products of globalization like greed and illegal trade, and many of these mansions no longer exist. He feels that it is only through greater exposure in academic and popular circles that one can hope for the preservation of much of what is left of India’s architectural legacy for coming generations.
The paintings on display at the Plainsboro Library were completed in India in 1984 as a part of his thesis project in architectural school in India. “These were the first paintings that I did,” he says. “They become more valuable because of the subject that I documented.”
Harathi and his wife, Chandrika, have a 12-year-old daughter, Sri, who attends Community Middle School. The artist is currently working on a series of paintings depicting post-9/11 Manhattan. “I travel to Manhattan every week and explore,” he says. “It is still a new city to me, and so it takes some time. But it has always been a leader in urban planning, and I find a great deal of inspiration in it.”
Because he does much of his work right in front of his subject, Harathi believes that his new watercolors represent an identity of Manhattan beyond the photographic medium. “They carry with them a nostalgic value,” he says. “I feel that I am continuing the tradition of the art of watercolor for the last 100 years.”
— Jack Florek
“Pushing Past: The Royal Palaces of Hyderabad,” by Murali Harathi, Plainsboro Public Library, Saturday, November 6 through Sunday, December 5. Artchat with the artist on Sunday, November 21, at 3 p.m. The gallery is open Monday and Friday, 9 a.m. to 5:30 p.m.; Tuesday through Thursday from 9 a.m to 8:30 p.m.; and Saturday and Sunday, 10 a.m. to 5 p.m.
