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From: Mani Varadarajan (mani_at_be.com)
Date: Mon Aug 09 1999 - 17:10:22 PDT
Dear Friends, Many of our divya desams' ancient, beautifully sculpted gopurams are now being painted, presumably with the idea of making them more lifelike and attractive. In my opinion, this is a bad trend, as the colors tend to make the sculptures gaudy and cartoonish, with garish greens and reds, without any subtlety whatsoever. I would much prefer they be left as is, so we can enjoy the ancient shilpis' artistry by itself. One good example is the Tiruvallikkeni gopuram. What in ancient days was a beautiful white/gray gopuram is now blue, green, and red, looking more like a gopuram of a small Amman or Murugan kOvil than our traditional Vaishnava ones. I understand that after the recent samprokshaNam Sri Sarnga Pani Swami's gopurams have also been painted in this fashion. What do others think of these colors? Does anyone really like them? Mani