Guru Nanak Dev Painting – Sikh Heritage Museum of Canada

Guru Nanak Dev

About the miniature painting...

Painted in the traditional Indian Miniature style, this composition features Guru Nanak Dev (1469-1539), the founder of Sikhism, with his two disciples Bhai Mardana and Bhai Bala, sitting beside him. The background of pristine landscape adds to the tranquility around the painting encased in intricately painted borders. The layered work, involving an elaborate process that starts with preparing the handmade paper with a couple of layers of thin white coat as primer, waiting for the first one to dry before the next one can be applied. The sketch is then drawn on this paper, followed by painting in light colours made out of ground minerals. Once the first layer dries up, other layers of colours are added. Life is then breathed into the imagery, by finishing the details and adding work in gold foil, which is finally burnished to endow the painting with a glow.

Born in 1965 at Jaipur in the western Indian state of Rajasthan, the artist Virendra Bannu is a seventh generation artist who continues to live in his ancestral house, taking forward the legacy of his family in specialized miniature art form.