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Puzzled is good with photos. No....not just 'good'.....he's brilliant. Always finds and shares with us the most brilliant of photos. There is one thing that annoys me about Puzzled though and that is the fact that he posts photos and pictures and then walks away. You can tell from the fact that he finds such amazing art to share with us that he does indeed have a great passion for art so I just wish he would tap into those creative juices flowing through his brain and share some of his own thoughts about the photos / pics he posts. That's what this discussion forum should be all about....sharing with the sangat.....sharing knowledge.....sharing skills....sharing ideas.....sharing passion. The pictures on Puzzled's thread are so amazing they're crying out for at least one of you on that page to voice your opinion about them. Critique them. Praise them. Love them. Hate them - and the reasons why. Obviously I can't post on any other page but this anonymous one so I waited patiently for one of you to do so......because I absolutely love reading what others have to say and learning from them. Alas, no opinion of the art ever came hence I've started this thread. OK....first of all....as most of us here are educated in the west we have to admit that the actual depictions are so out of scale and unrealistic that they almost look as though a small child drew them. That's a given....but the question is why are the depictions so unrealistic and out of scale. The answer to that lies in History. History answers everything........including Sikh Art. A small part of the answer also lies in psychology in the sense that we, as a people, generally, did not, and in a sense still do not, possess the kind of curious nature that led to the renaissance in Europe. But even that 'psychology' has a 'history' narrative in the sense that we didn't go through the same change in psyche as the Europeans because, at that time, we were not going through he same fragmented upheavals as them, i.e. we were under a singular mughal rule. And that's the key to all of this - the Mughals (Muslims) vs the Europeans (Christians). That's not to say attempts were never made in Punjab to adopt the European concept of perspective in drawings / paintings - They were, but ultimatelely our bad art without perspective is the result of the idealogical war between muslims and christians. Punjabi art, at that time, was Indian art, and Indian art was essentially Persian art but as the Persians were always more occupied in symmetrical beauty they never developed any true sense painting the human form and nature to scale with perspective. That was never their thing. And so, when art advanced in Europe, the Mughal emporers, starting with Humayun, did indeed invite European masters to come and teach the court how to paint with perspective. However, there was a problem straight away in the sense that the beautifull new way of painting realistically in Europe was almost entirely Christian in nature in the way that the art-form itself was seen as a tool to depict scenes from the Bible. the next emporer, Akbar, carried on where his dad left off and started a school in which European masters could teach Indians about proper painting. In fact, there was a time, during Akbar's reign, that it seemed the European style of realism in paintings was becoming the norm in Punjab. But old habits die hard. There was a cultural afinity towards Persian art - partly because the word persia was synonymous with art and when the Punjabi and Indian mind thinks of art he or she almost always firstly thinks of poetry - and so the natural pull back to persian depictions in paintings was always stopping Sikh art from embracing European modes of perspective. Maybe I'm not explaining myself very well here but what I'm trying to say is this: When looking at Jaimal Singh Naqash and Mehtab Singh Naqash.'s painted frescos at the Golden temple, you and I need to have an understanding of history. When we have that, we can get inside the heads of Jaimal Singh and Mehtab Singh. I mean really get inside their heads - to the point that we can picture ourselves as them holding their brushes in front of those walls and ceilings. When we do, we start to understand that linear perspectives didn't even enter our minds - or if they did at all they were just insignificant afterthoughts. What was most important then is the same as what is most important now if one goes to any Gurdwara anywhere in the world (incidentally....I raised a very important point point in my Gurdwara Designs thread yesterday about this that I'd like you all to contemplate) - COLOUR !! Excessive use of colour. Even in the real surroundings of Gurdwaras today you will not find the physical versions of linear perspectives and symmetry etc. You will find colour. Sometimes garish, over-the-top colours. Exactly the same with Sikh Art - it reflects the psyche of we, the Sikhs.