The Living Art Traditions of India

Written and reviewed by Subhra Gupta, Humanities faculty at UniDrill (M.A. Sociology, University of Delhi · 7 years teaching Humanities). Based on NCERT Fine Arts Class XII (An Introduction to Indian Art Part II), Chapter 8.

Who painted the walls before there were art schools?

Every chapter so far followed a period or a dynasty: the Mauryas, the Mughals, the Rajput courts. But the artists who worked for those courts did not appear from nowhere. Someone taught them. Someone decorated village walls, made pots and jewellery, and shaped clay gods long before a king noticed. This chapter is about those artists, many of whom have never been to an art school or design institute, and whose work is still being made today. That is why the chapter is called living traditions.

What are "living" art traditions?

India has always been a repository of knowledge passed from one generation to the next. Artists in each generation made the best of what material and technology they had. Scholars have given these art forms many names: minor arts, utility art, folk art, tribal art, people's art, ritual art and crafts. The names overlap, and the textbook itself says there is only a thin line between the art of the people and crafts, because both involve creativity, instinct, necessity and aesthetics.

These arts are old. You can see their roots in prehistoric cave paintings and in the pottery, terracotta, bronze and ivory of the Indus period. In early history there are references to communities of artists everywhere, who made pots and clothes, jewellery and ritual or votive sculptures, decorated walls and floors, and supplied local markets at the same time. Their work shows an instinctive aesthetic, with symbolism and a specific use of motifs, materials, colours and methods.

These arts carry the tangible heritage of a country with a history of more than five thousand years. By and large they have a religious or ritualistic overtone, rich symbolism, and both utilitarian and decorative aspects connected to daily practice at home or large-scale production.

Two views. For the exam: folk art, tribal art, ritual art and crafts are names for the arts of common people, and the chapter treats them together as living traditions. Another reading: the textbook notes that the borderline between people's art and crafts is thin, and that people disagree whether palm leaf manuscript painting of Odisha is folk or sophisticated art, because its lineage connects it to the mural and palm leaf traditions of the east and other parts of the country. The labels are tools for study, and the same tradition can be seen from more than one side.

The chapter map

The chapter treats Mithila, Warli, Gond, Pithoro, Pata, Phad, Dhokra and terracotta in detail.

Mithila or Madhubani painting (Bihar)

Mithila is the ancient Videha, the birthplace of Sita, and gives the art its name. It is also called Madhubani after the nearest district capital, and it is a widely recognised folk art. It is presumed that for centuries women in the region have painted figures and designs on the walls of their mud houses for ceremonial occasions, particularly weddings. People of the area see the origin of the art in the time of Princess Sita's marriage to Lord Rama. The paintings are known for bright colours.

Where in the house? They are largely painted in three areas of the house, and the inner room is the most special.

In recent times many paintings are also made on fabric, paper and pots for commercial purposes.

Themes, motifs and materials. Themes include episodes from the Bhagvata Purana and the Ramayana, stories of Shiva and Parvati, Durga and Kali, and the Rasa-Lila of Radha and Krishna. Mithila artists dislike empty spaces and fill the whole field with elements of nature: birds, flowers, animals, fish, snakes, the Sun and the moon. These often have symbolic intent, signifying love, passion, fertility, eternity, well-being and prosperity.

Women paint with bamboo twigs with a bit of cotton swab, rice straw or fibre attached. In earlier days they made colours from mineral stones and organic things such as phalsa and kusum flowers, bilwa leaves, kajal and turmeric.

Beyond the textbook. For the exam: Mithila painting is a wall art of women, connected to weddings, with the kohbar lotus in the inner room. In reality: the same style is now also made on paper, cloth and other objects for buyers outside the home, and Madhubani painting is registered as a Geographical Indication. Why it matters: the exam answer is about the wall and the ritual, while the market form is a later development the textbook mentions only briefly.

Warli painting (Maharashtra)

The Warli community lives on the west coast of northern Maharashtra, around the northern Sahyadri range, with a large concentration in the district of Thane. Married women play the central role in creating their most important painting, the Chowk, to mark special occasions. The Chowk is closely associated with marriage, fertility, harvest and the new season of sowing.

The paintings are traditionally made with rice flour on the earth-coloured walls of their homes, with a bamboo stick chewed at one end as the paintbrush. They are painted to promote fertility, to avert diseases, to propitiate the dead and to meet the demands of spirits.

Pause and predict: a Warli painting shows a tiger, hunters, farmers and a bus in one frame. Does the bus make it a modern fake?

Check your answer: no. The textbook says the surrounding scenes show everyday life, including buses and busy Mumbai as the Warli see around them. A living tradition takes in what is in its surroundings, and the Palaghat and chevron frame are the parts that mark it as traditional.

Gond and Pithoro painting

Gond painting. The Gonds of Madhya Pradesh have a rich tradition, and their chiefs once ruled Central India. They worshipped nature. The paintings of the Gonds of Mandla and its surroundings have recently become colourful depictions of animals, humans and flora. Their votive paintings are geometric drawings on the walls of huts, showing Krishna with his cows surrounded by gopis with pots on their heads, to whom young girls and boys make offerings.

Pithoro painting. Painted by the Rathva Bhils of the Panchmahal region of Gujarat and Jhabua in neighbouring Madhya Pradesh, Pithoro paintings are done on house walls to mark special or thanksgiving occasions. They are large wall paintings showing rows of colourful deities as horse riders. The rows represent the cosmography of the Rathvas.

Pata painting: scrolls that tell stories

Scroll painting on fabric, palm leaf or paper is practised in many parts of the country, especially Gujarat and Rajasthan in the west and Odisha and West Bengal in the east. It is also known as Pata, Pachedi and Phad.

Bengal patas. The Bengal pata combines painting on cloth with storytelling. The textbook calls it the most receptive oral tradition, constantly looking for new themes and responding to major events in the world. The vertically painted pata is a prop for the patua, the performer, also called chitrakar. Patuas belong to communities settled around Midnapore, Birbhum and Bankura in West Bengal and parts of Bihar and Jharkhand, and handling the pata is their hereditary profession. They travel from village to village displaying the paintings and singing the stories painted on them. A patua narrates three to four stories each time in common village spaces, and receives alms or a gift in cash or kind.

Puri patas of Odisha. They take their name from the temple city of Puri and are largely painted on cloth (earlier also palm leaf, and now paper as well). The range of themes is wide.

How a patachitra is made. It is done on small strips of cotton cloth.

The colours are organic and locally sourced: black from lamp black, yellow from haritali, red from hingal stone, and white from powdered conch shells. Palm manuscripts are illustrated on a palm called Khar-taad. These are not painted with a brush but incised with a steel stylus, filled with ink and sometimes tinted with paint, and may carry text.

Phads of Rajasthan

Phads are long, horizontal cloth scrolls painted to honour the folk deities of pastoral communities around Bhilwara in Rajasthan. For these communities, protecting livestock is the foremost concern, and it shows in their myths, legends and worship. Their gods include deified cattle heroes, brave men who gave their lives to protect the community's cattle from robbers. The broad term for them is bhomia. Bhomias such as Gogaji, Jejaji, Dev Narayan, Ramdevji and Pabuji have a wide following among the Rabaris, Gujjars, Meghwals, Regars and others.

Through the phad and the reading of the phad (phad banchan) the community remembers the hero as a martyr and keeps the story alive. The textbook says the link of skilled practitioners, bard musicians and court artists puts phads higher than other similar cultural traditions.

Pause and predict: the bhopa carries the phad, sings, and holds a lamp to it. So who painted it?

Check your answer: a Joshi. The bhopa is the performer and does not paint. The Joshis come from the caste of painters at the courts of Rajasthan's kings, which is why phads share the skills of court miniatures.

Sculptural traditions

These are the popular traditions of making sculpture in clay (terracotta), metal and stone.

Dhokra casting. Dhokra is one of the most prominent metal crafts, made by the lost wax (cire perdue) technique, in Bastar in Chhattisgarh, parts of Madhya Pradesh and Odisha, and Midnapore in West Bengal. It is bronze casting by the lost wax method. The metal craftsmen of Bastar are called ghadwa, which in popular etymology means the act of shaping and creating. They traditionally supplied villagers with utensils for daily use and made jewellery, icons of local deities and votive offerings like snakes, elephants, horses and ritual pots. As demand for utensils and traditional ornaments fell, they began making new, non-traditional forms and many decorative objects.

Beyond the textbook. For the exam: Dhokra is lost wax casting of Bastar and nearby regions, and the saal resin is the "wax" that disappears. In reality: lost wax casting is among the oldest metal casting methods known in India. The same principle lies behind the bronze Dancing Girl of the Indus Valley and the Chola bronzes, so a village craft still practised today links back to the earliest bronze work you studied in Class XI. Why it matters: a question may ask which technique the Dhokra craftsmen use, and you can answer with confidence that it is cire perdue.

Terracotta. Terracotta is the more widespread sculptural medium. Usually made by potters, terracotta pieces are votive offerings to local deities or are used in rituals and festivals. They are made from local clay of riverbanks or ponds and baked for durability. They are found in Manipur and Assam in the North-East, Kuchchha in Western India, the Hills in the North, Tamil Nadu in the South, the Gangetic plains and Central India. They are moulded, modelled by hand or made on the potter's wheel, coloured or decorated. Forms and purposes are often similar: images of gods and goddesses like Ganesh and Durga or the local deity, and animals, birds and insects.

Traditions side by side

Exam traps

60-second revision

Where this chapter connects

• Previous: The Modern Indian Art shows Jamini Roy, Subramanyan and the Baroda artists drawing on folk and popular art.
• Earlier chapters: Arts of the Indus Valley and Prehistoric Rock Paintings are the oldest roots of these continuing traditions.
• Related: Indian Bronze Sculpture covers the lost wax technique in its temple and court form, while Dhokra is its village form.