Folk Arts of India - Painting : Madhubani

India is a land of diverse art forms matured over millennia by constant practice and use. Her warm weather, cycle of seasons and vivacious flora and fauna inspires her people to create vibrant art forms. In India art is an integral  part of living that is woven into every day activities. It is not something to be placed on a pedestal and observed in galleries. In this series of articles, we introduce some of the wonderful traditional arts from India that have inspired our artists.  

Madhubani or Mithila Art:

Evolution

Mithila art is a style of painting that has been traditionally practiced by women from the culture and tradition rich villages around Mithila region of Bihar state in India and adjoining parts of the Terai region in Nepal. Traditionally, painting was done on freshly plastered mud walls of huts, using pointed sticks or a handmade cloth brush with colors derived from plants. Now it is also done on cloth, hand-made paper and canvas. They are either in black and white or vibrantly colored.  

Madhubani paintings use two-dimensional imagery and mostly depict nature, Hindu motifs and stories from mythology. For example, the Sun, the Moon, fish, plant of Tulsi, deities like Radhe-Krishna, Goddess Durga, Saraswati, Ramayana stories, Shiva in form of ‘Ardhanarinateshwar’ etc. The paintings were usually done on walls during festivals, religious events, and other milestones in life, such as birth, sacred thread ceremony and marriage. Madhubani paintings contain intricate patterns in the spaces of the paintings. Symbolism associated with snake and fish is that of fertility and is usually painted for marriage.

A guest artist for Heart2Heart, Varsha Dabholkar has used this style to express her ideas in the card 'Evolution'.