Icon Calm Wall Art

Icon Calm — 6 museum-grade prints that set the mood. Ardhanareeswara — the half-Shiva, half-Parvati form — embodies the inseparability of the masculine and feminine principles, and it is a natural subject for bhitti chitra, Kerala's temple-mural tradition that flourished roughly from the 16th to 19th century and is still painted today. These murals use the panchavarna five-colour system — red, yellow, green, black and white over an ochre ground — in flat opaque fields bounded by a bold lamp-black outline, with the school's elongated lotus-shaped eyes. Ayyappa, also called Sastha or Dharmasastha, is the deity of Sabarimala, one of the most visited pilgrimage shrines in India, reached after a strict forty-one-day vratham. He is classically shown in the seated yogic posture with the yoga-pattam band around the knees, and his vahana is the tiger. Dakshinamurthy is Shiva in his aspect as the supreme guru — the teacher who imparts knowledge in silence, seated facing south (dakshina), often under a banyan, with the chinmudra and surrounded by sages. He is a classic subject of bhitti chitra, Kerala's temple-mural tradition that flourished roughly from the 16th to 19th century and is still painted today: flat panchavarna pigments (red, yellow, green, black, white over an ochre ground), a bold lamp-black outline and the school's elongated lotus-shaped eyes.

Updated 22 Jun 2026