NURTURE OUR CULTURE
Folk art tribal art are easily recognizable-Bright colours, bold strokes, quaint way of representing people and animals.Many actually tell a tale! India being a vast country and with so many agriculture communities and tribes living close to nature, Many art forms evolved. Many have all but disappeared. Fortunately, there is an interest in such traditional art forms and efforts are being made to revive some of them.
Madhubani Painting
Madhubani district in Bihar represents almost centre of the territory known as Mithila. The art form that is believed to have originated from here is known as Madhubani or Mithila art. The origin of the art form may be traced to king janaka who order his people to decorate their homes,celebrating the wedding of his daughter sita, also know as mithali (daughter of mithila) with lord Rama. This is essentially a form of wall art-usually done on freshly plastered or a mud wall.Each of the painting or representation may tell a story or illustrate a specific occasion.the traditional images are derived from our Mythology. Thus they may feature stories about Rama and Sita, Krishna, Ganesh and so on.Strong colours such are Red.yellow, Green and Black are used. you will rarely see any gaps or empty spaces in the paintings!even the small spaces between the larger figures are filled with creepers, animals and birds or geometric patterns making it very detailed. the work demands high level of concentration and each such painting is unique.
How is the painting done? Not with a set of tubes of water colour or bottles of poster paints but using fingers,twigs of sticks, nib pen and even matchsticks! The colour used are derived from different flowers,berries, tree bark and clay. Black , for example, may be obtain from soot mix with cow-dung while white is got from rice powder. Red is from kusum flowers and blue form indigo and so on. Thus it is very nature based.
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| MADHUBANI PAINTING |
There are five distinctive styles in madhubani itself: Bharni, Katchni.Tantrik,Godhna and Geru and khobar. while some of these depict gods and goddesses, other depict daily life of people including festive occasions such as birth and marriage or festivals such as Holi or Durga puja. A distinctive features is sharp noses and bulging eyes and the two dimensional appearance of humans and animals.
Today, Madhubni is fairly well known world over and many artists have received state and national award. imagine, just a little over fifty year ago. not many knew about this beautiful art! after and earthquake devastated Bihar in 1934. William archer who was then the local collector is believed to have stumbled upon it and he took some photographs of wall and floors decorated with the painting, but it was only in 1966. After a major drought in the region, that the all India Handicrafts board encouraged women of the region to transfer their art from walls to paper so that they could sell these beautiful painting and generate income.
Today it is an art form that is highly sought after the throughout the world and even has the GI (Geographical indication) status meaning that the art form is identified with the place of origin. it has become popular enough to feature on saree and dress materials apart from painting on canvas or paper!
