- Painting is done with fingers, twigs, brushes, nib-pens, and matchsticks, using natural dyes and pigments, and is characterized by eye-catching geometrical patterns
- There are paintings for each occasion and festival such as birth, marriage, holi, Surya shasti, Kali puja, Upanayanam (sacred thread ceremony), and Durga puja
- For centuries, the women of the Mithila region of northern Bihar and southern Nepal have done wall and floor paintings on the occasion of marriages and other domestic rituals
- These paintings, inside their homes, on the internal and external walls of their
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| MITHILA PAINTING (Marriage) |
compounds, and on the ground inside or around their homes, create sacred, protective, and auspicious spaces for their families and their rituals
- Although the images were similar, women of different castes developed distinctive styles of painting
- In the aftermath of a major earthquake in 1934, William Archer, the local Collector, inspecting the damage in Mithila's villages, saw these wall and floor paintings for the first time and subsequently photographed a number of them
- Recognizing their great beauty, he and his wife, Mildred, brought them to wider attention in several publications
- In the 1950s and early 1960s, several Indian scholars and artists visited the region and also became enamored of the paintings
- But it was not until 1966, in the midst of a major drought, that the All India Handicrafts Board sent an artist, Baskar Kulkarni, to Mithila to encourage the women to make paintings on paper that they could sell as a new source of family income
- Although traditionally, women of several castes painted, Kulkarni was only able to convince a small group of Mahapatra Brahmin and Kayastha women to paint on paper
- By the late 1960s and early 1970s, two of these women, Sita Devi and Ganga Devi were recognized as great artists both in India where they received numerous commissions, and in Europe, Japan, Russia, and the United States where they represented India in cultural fairs and expositions
- Their success and active encouragement led scores of other women to paint
- Many of these women have also been recognized as artists of national and international stature. Furthermore, women of several other castes, are now painting most especially the Dusadh, a Dalit community, and also small numbers of men
- Over time, aside from the growing diversity of people painting, the subject matter of the paintings has expanded to include ancient epics, local legends and tales, domestic, rural, and community life, ritual, local, national, and international politics, as well as the painters' own life histories
- Artists of different castes and genders are now borrowing themes and styles from one another
- Mithila painting has demonstrated the extraordinary vitality and become a vibrant and aesthetically powerful tradition.
ORIGINS
- The origins of Madhubani painting or Mithila Painting are shrouded in antiquity
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and mythology.
- Madhubani painting/Mithila painting has been done traditionally by the women of villages around the present town of Madhubani and Darbhanga (the literal meaning of Madhubani is forests of honey) and other areas of Mithila
- The painting was traditionally done on freshly plastered mud walls and floors of huts, but now they are also done on cloth, handmade paper, and canvas
- Madhubani paintings are made from the paste of powdered rice
- Madhubani painting has remained confined to a compact geographical area and the skills have been passed on through centuries, the content and the style have largely remained the same
- And that is the reason for Madhubani painting being accorded the coveted GI (Geographical Indication) status
- Madhubani paintings also use two-dimensional imagery, and the colors used are derived from plants
- Ochre and lampblack are also used for reddish brown and black respectively
- Madhubani paintings mostly depict the men & its association with nature and the scenes & deity from the ancient epics
- Natural objects like the sun, the moon, and religious plants like tulsi are also widely painted, along with scenes from the royal court and social events like weddings
- Generally, no space is left empty; the gaps are filled with paintings of flowers, animals, birds, and even geometric designs
- Objects depicted in the walls of kohabar ghar (where newlywed couple see each other on the first night) are symbols of sexual pleasure and procreation
- This painting is, in fact, simplistic manifestation of the philosophical heights achieved by Indian civilization for the universal power of love, longing, and peace
- Traditionally, painting was one of the skills that were passed down from generation to generation in the families of the Mithila Region, mainly by women
- Madhubani painting received official recognition in 1970 when the President of India gave an award to Jagdamba Devi, of Jitbarpur village near Madhubani
- Other painters, Mahasundari Devi (2008), Sita Devi, Godavari Dutt, Bharti Dayal and Bua Devi were also given this National award
- Smt Bharti Dayal won an Award from All India Fine Arts and Crafts for fifty years of art in independent India and the State Award for kalamkari in Mithila Painting and her painting "Eternal Music" bagged the top award in Millennium Art Competition from AIFAC for the year 2001
- Smt Bharti Dayal is also Honoured with The Vishist Bihari Samman amid festivities to commemorate 100 years of Bihar.
A BRIEF HISTORY
- Mithila painting, as a domestic ritual activity, was unknown to the outside world
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until the massive Bihar earthquake of 1934
- House walls had tumbled down, and the British colonial officer in Madhubani District, William G. Archer, inspecting the damage "discovered" the paintings on the newly exposed interior walls of homes
- Archer - later to become the South Asia Curator at London's Victoria and Albert Museum - was stunned by the beauty of the paintings and similarities to the work of modern Western artists like Klee, Miro, and Picasso
- During the 1930s he took black and white photos of some of these paintings, the earliest images we have of them
- Then in a 1949 article in the Indian art journal, Marg, he brought the wall paintings to public attention.
- Then a second natural disaster, a severe drought in the late 1960s, prompted the All India Handicrafts Board to encourage a few upper caste women in villages around Madhubani town to transfer their ritual wall paintings to paper as an income generating project
- Drawing on the region's rich visual culture, contrasting "line painting" and "color painting" traditions, and their individual talents, several of these women turned out to be superb artists. Four of them were soon representing India in cultural fairs in Europe, Russia, and the USA
- Their national and international recognition prompted many other women from many other castes - including harijans or dalits, the ex-"untouchables" - to begin painting on paper as well
- By the late 1970s, the popular success of the paintings - aesthetically distinct from other Indian painting traditions - was drawing dealers from New Delhi offering minimal prices for mass-produced paintings of the most popular divinities and three familiar scenes from the Ramayana
- Out of poverty, many painters complied with the dealers' demands and produced
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| MITHILA PAINTING ( Peacock) |
the rapid and repetitious images known as "Madhubani paintings." Nevertheless, with the encouragement of a number of outsiders - both Indian and foreign - other artists working within the same aesthetic traditions continued to produce the highly crafted, deeply individual and increasingly diverse work, now known as "Mithila Painting."
- Mithila had long been famous in India for its rich culture and numerous poets, scholars, and theologians - all men
- For women, it has been a deeply conservative society, and until painting on paper began 40+ years ago, most women were confined to their homes and limited to household chores, child rearing, managing family rituals, and ritual wall painting.
- Painting on paper for sale has changed this dramatically
- Aside from generating important new family income, individual women have gained local, national, and even international recognition
- Artists are being invited to exhibitions across India, and to Europe, the United States, and Japan - no longer as "folk artists," but now as "contemporary artists
- Where once their paintings were "anonymous," now they are proudly signed
- Along with economic success, opportunities for travel, education, radio, and now television are expanding women's consciousness and engagement with the multiple worlds around them
- Gender relations are shifting
- A few men continue to paint within what is still defined as "a women's tradition," but their work tends to be personal and anodyne
- In contrast, the women's paintings are increasingly socially charged, critical, and edgy
- These changes have provoked an argument in Mithila and beyond between cultural conservatives who claim that commercialization and the loss of its ritual functions has debased Mithila painting, versus those who see Mithila Painting as a contemporary art form rooted in the expanding experience, concerns, and freedoms of Mithila's women
- The Evolution of an Art Form are encouraged to form their own judgments
- Women in the Mithila region of Bihar in north India have painted colorful auspicious images on the interior walls of their homes on the occasion of domestic rituals since at least the 14th century
- This ancient tradition, especially elaborated for marriages, continues today
- However in 1968 in the midst of a severe drought, a few women began to paint on paper for sale, as a new source of family income
- At first, they simply transferred onto paper the traditional images - gods and goddesses and symbolic icons - from the wall paintings
- Soon many other women followed, and even a few men
- Over the next 30 years, while retaining the wall paintings' distinctive styles and conventions, they began painting many new subjects; episodes from the Ramayana, local epics, and tales, ritual activities, village life, even autobiographical paintings
- And since 2000, they began painting local, national, and international events: floods, terrorism, global warming, and most recently, feminist issues such as patriarchy, dowry, bride burning, female infanticide, differential medical care and education for girls and boys, etc
