Later Mural Traditions

Badami cave paintings are important because they show the continuation of the Ajanta mural tradition in South India. The surviving fragment is on the vaulted roof of the front mandapa of Cave No. 4, also called the Vishnu Cave. The paintings mainly depict palace scenes. One panel shows Kirtivarman seated in the palace with his wife and feudatories watching a dance, while figures of Indra and his retinue appear in the corner.

Their main stylistic features are:
- Sinuously drawn lines
- Fluid forms
- Compact composition
- Gracefully drawn faces with large eye-sockets, half-closed eyes, and protruding lips
- The contours of the face create a sense of volume through simple line treatment

Thus, the Badami paintings show maturity, elegance, and close links with the Ajanta style.

The Vijayanagara paintings mark an important phase in the later mural tradition of South India. When the Chola power declined in the thirteenth century, the Vijayanagara dynasty rose in the fourteenth to sixteenth centuries and controlled the region from Hampi to Trichy. Their paintings survive in many temples.

The early phase of this style is seen at Tiruparakunram near Trichy. In Hampi, the Virupaksha temple has paintings on the ceiling of the mandapa narrating episodes from dynastic history, the Ramayana, and the Mahabharata. Important panels include Vidyaranya being carried in a palanquin and the incarnations of Vishnu. At Lepakshi in present-day Andhra Pradesh, there are also glorious examples of Vijayanagara paintings.

The style is characterized by:
- Figures and faces shown mostly in profile
- Large frontal eyes
- Narrow waists
- Figures and objects treated two-dimensionally
- Still but fluid lines
- Compositions arranged in rectilinear compartments

These features show that Vijayanagara painters developed a distinct pictorial language while continuing earlier South Indian traditions. Their style later influenced the Nayaka painters as well.