Ritual practices in mithila painting

Mithila is an historic seat of Indian civilization where ancient ritual practices have survived for centuries. Maithili men have long been known as priests and scholars. At the same time, women have long been specialists on the floor- and wall-painting associated with a vast array of ritual practices. Thus when performing the samskaras, the rites of passage or initiation across the life cycle, Maithil Brahmin, Mahapatra, and Kayastha women use their fingers dipped in pithar, rice paste, to draw elaborate geometric and floral diagrams known as aripan, on mud- and cowdung-plastered floors. Each of the several dozen rituals has its own distinctive aripan.

Marriages involve numerous ceremonies and rites over a several year period, and are consummated on the fourth day of the second wedding in an internal nuptial chamber, the khobar-ghar. This room is decorated with wall paintings of protective gods and goddesses, and a kohbar – an elaborated lotus pond, an icon of fertility, fecundity, and prosperity. Wall paintings are also traditional near the gosain-ghar, the shrine of the family deity situated in a corner of kitchen. On the sacred day of Durgashtami, the eighth day of the festival honoring the goddess Durga, both walls flanking the kitchen door are richly painted with images of Durga astride her lion. During marriages and festivals the outer walls of houses of many different castes are also frequently embellished with protective and decorative motifs as well as mythological figures and scenes.

Source:Mithilapainting.org

Painting collection at Museum.

You can see A collection of Mihila Paintings at the Bihar govt  Institute of industrialDesign digha Patna and at in museum  Darbhanga. President of India gave an award to Mrs Jagdamba Devi of Village Jitbarpur near Madhubani. Beside her, two other painters, Mrs Sita Devi and Mrs Mahasundari Devi were also given national awards in this field.In 2011, Shri Mahasundari Devi was again awarded, this time Padma Shri by the government of India.

A collection of some samples of Mithila's domestic arts may be seen in the Chandradhari Museum, Darbhanga. W.G. Archer has also a collection of Mithila paintings and so has Upendra Maharathi, the artist, under whose supervision a collection of Bihar's folk art and craft has been built up at the Bihar Government Institute of Industrial Design, Digha, Patna.

Traditionally, painting was one of the skills that was passed down from generation to generation in the families of the Mithila Region, mainly by women. The painting was usually done on walls during festivals, religious events, and other milestones of the life-cycle such as birth, Upanayanam (sacred thread ceremony), and marriage.it is one of the best craft work

Madhubani art

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

 

Madhubani Paintings-Technique and colors

Madhubani painting comes from the Indian villages of Madhubani and Mithila in Bihar. These paintings are done on various mediums such as cloth, hand made paper and canvas. The main themes of Madhubani paintings contain images of Hindu deities such as Krishna, Ram, Shiva, Durga, Lakshmi and Saraswati. Also you will be able to find beautiful Madhubani paintings of sun, moon and tulsi or the sacred basil plant revered very much by the Hindus.

Scenes of royal courts and social events such as celebration of wedding are also beautifully depicted in Madhubani paintings.The main categories in Madhubani paintings are:

• Traditional
• Monochrome
• Tattoo
• Contemporary
• Animals and Birds

Technique

The art of Madhubani painting requires skill and implies a certain technique. This technique requires simple raw materials that are easily located in villages such as bamboo sticks and cotton.
Firstly the cotton is wrapped around a bamboo stick to serve as a brush. Then the brush is dipped in colors and applied on to the fabric. No shading technique is used. The outline is done with double lines. The gaps between the two lines are filled with cross or straight lines. Colors are not used in linear paintings.

Vegetable colors are used making use of natural resources. For eg

• Black – By blending soot and cow dung
• Yellow - From turmeric, pollen, lime, milk of banyan leaves,
• Blue -Indigo
• Red - Kusam flower juice or red sandalwood
• Green - wood apple tree leaves
• White - Rice powder
• Orange - Palasha flowers

Madhubani paintings are pretty and well recognized by their distinct style of painting. Colorful and vivid in their description and get, the Madhubani art form is well appreciated by one and all. Madhubani paintings add a dash of vibrancy in the room and enhance its appeal when used as home décor item.
Madhubani painting is an expression of day-to-day experiences and beliefs. Madhubani painting is a traditional art symbolism, simplicity and beauty. In the Madhubani painting, the treatment of color is beautifully done. The themes of daily activities, nature, flora and fauna and Hindu Gods are the most prominent.

Madhubani paintings are characterized by the vibrant and bold use of colors and traditional geometric patterns that supports the main theme. Some of the main attributes of all the Madhubani paintings double line border, ornate floral patterns, abstract-like figures of deities and bulging eyes and a jolting nose of the faces of the figures.

The Madhubani painting is a traditional folk art form which has succeeded in creating a place for itself in the internationally and is recognized world wide.

Sources: CraftsinIndia.com

Mithila Painting-- some useful informations

Madhubani paintings, (also referred to as Mithila Art as it flourishes in the Mithila region of Bihar), are characterized by line drawings based on mythological themes, in bright colours and decorative borders. They are so called because they originated in and around a large agricultural town in Bihar, Madhubani or 'Forest of Honey'.
Originally, Madhubani Paintings were executed on freshly plastered mud walls, on religious occasions or weddings. Each painting was a prayer and an accompaniment to meditation. Well executed paintings were believed to be inhabited by the deities depicted in them. The colors used in these paintings were made from Natural Dyes. Today, Madhubani Paintings are made on silk, Handmade paper, cloth, canvas etc for commercial purposes. The use of chemical dyes and paints have resulted in brighter multicolored paintings.

Madhubani art came to the notice of the rest of the country in the 1960s. Bihar had been hit by a terrible drought and the government decided to promote Madhubani Paintings to create an alternative non agricultural source of earning. The All-India Handicrafts Board encouraged the artists
Madhubani paintings are mostly made by Hindu village women who traditionally passed on this skill from mother to daughter.

There is a caste hierarchy involved in the making of Madhubani paintings. The Brahmins, people of the highest caste, depict images of Gods and Goddesses and use all kinds of bright colours such as red, yellow, blue and lemon. The second in the hierarchy are the Kayasthas, who paint religious themes and motifs, but use only red and black colors. The lowest caste, the Dusadhs, paint religious themes but use more of the Gondhna or Tattoo art and usually depicts flora and fauna in repetitive motifs.

Even today, most of the Madhubani artists' work remains anonymous. Few women like to mark their paintings with their names, and are quite reluctant to consider themselves individual producers of "works of art".

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Central theme of Madhubani Paintings.

Madhubani Painting Themes

The central theme the Madhubani paintings is the Hindu Gods and Goddesses. The main theme is supported by the traditional geometric patterns. Some of the main attributes of all the Madhubani paintings double line border, ornate floral patterns, abstract-like figures of deities, bold use of colors and bulging eyes and a jolting nose of the faces of the figures. Madhubani paintings requires paste of cow dung and mud, applied to the walls and floors to give a perfect black background on which pictures are drawn with rice paste and vegetable colors. As the ethnic art is gaining its due popularity these days, this art form is being done on a variety of interesting bases like canvas, drapes, handmade paper, wall hangings, glass, sarees etc. For an authentic look many of the painters still apply a thin layer of cow dung and mud paste on their canvases.

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Stop Tree cutting.
Painting made at Centre by:Bandana Devi.

Symbolism in Mabhubani Paintings

Most of the figures depicted in Madhubani paintings carry a symbolic meaning to them which makes these paintings all the more interesting. Fishes in a Madhubani painting depict good luck, fertility and procreation, peacocks symbolize romantic love while serpents in these paintings are identified as divine protectors.

Madhubani Painting Artists

Madhubani paintings were traditionally done by females only. Since generations, this folk art form has been passing from mothers to daughters in Mithila. Though, the madhubani painting technique has now crossed the restricted confinements of Mithila and Bihar and thus, skilled madhubani artists (including males) can be found in other parts of the country as well.

Introduction of Mithila Paintings

Hindu women who live in villages near the market town of Madhubani in northern India maintain old traditions and teach them to their daughters. Painting is one of the traditional skills that is passed down from generation to generation in the families of some of the women. They paint figures from nature and myth on household and village walls to mark the seasonal festivals of the religious year, for special events of the life-cycle, and when marriages are being arranged they prepare intricately designed wedding proposals.
But even though women in the villages around Madhubani have been practicing their folk art for centuries, the world at large has come to know about these women and to consider them to be "artists" only in the last thirty years. Even now, most of their work remains anonymous. The women, some of them illiterate, are in any case reluctant to consider themselves individual producers of "works of art" and only a few of them mark the paintings with their own name.

Among the first modern outsiders to document the tradition of Madhubani painting were William and Mildred Archer. He was a British civil servant assigned to the district during the colonial era. The Archers obtained some drawings on paper that the women painters were using as aids to memory. Works that the Archers collected went to the India Records Office in London (now part of the British Library) where a small number of specialists could study them as creative instances of India's folk art.

What led the women painters to share their work with the larger world was a major ecological and economic crisis that resulted from a prolonged drought in 1966-68 that struck Madhubani and the surrounding region of Mithila. In order to create a new source of non-agricultural income, the All-India Handicrafts Board encouraged the women artists to produce their traditional paintings on handmade paper for commercial sale.

Since then, painting has become a primary source of income for scores of families. Production and initial marketing have been regulated by regional craft guilds, the state government of Bihar, and the Government of India. But the continuing market in this art throughout the world is a tribute to the resourcefulness of the women of Mithila who have successfully transferred their techniques of bhitti chitra or wall-painting to the medium of paper, and have resisted the temptation to adapt their traditional designs too freely in pursuit of unpredictable public tastes.

Poster from MithilaPainting centre.

Source:www.vl-site.org/india/mithila/intro.html

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