Subika Painting:
Manipur boasts a rich cultural heritage but some of its invaluable art forms like Subika Paintings are on the brink of extinction due to neglect.
- Subika Paintings is a style of painting which is intricately linked to the Meitei community’s cultural history.
- It is surviving through its six manuscripts — Subika, Subika Achouba, Subika Laishaba, Subika Choudit, Subika Cheithil and Thengrakhel Subika.
- Although the royal chronicle, Cheitharol Kumbaba, doesn’t mention a specific founder, there is a possibility that this art form existed when the writing tradition was introduced in the state.
- Experts estimate the use of Subika paintings since the 18th or 19th century.
- The painting of Subika Laisaba is a composition of cultural motifs made by pre-existing features and other influences stimulated by their cultural worldviews.
- Among the six manuscripts, Subika Laishaba represents a direct and authentic continuation of the Meitei cultural tradition depicted through visual images.
- The illustrations of Subika Laishaba have visual language from the elements such as lines, shapes, forms, colours, and patterns.
- These visual images become Meitei’s cultural motif, and structure to create visual effects as well as express cultural significance, meaning and values.
- The visual images found in this manuscript are painted on handmade paper.
- It is also found that the materials of manuscripts are prepared indigenously either handmade paper or barks of trees.
