Indian Traditional Painting Styles: Top Paintings, History, Types, and Cultural Significance

Today there are many techniques of traditional paintings in the Indian art that has become a rich heritage after centuries of practice. Thus, it is possible to claim that each style tells another story that demonstrates the multifaceted and rich character of India’s roots. This is particularly important in the understanding of these conventional painting styles depending on whether one would like to teach in the field of design or prepare to write the Design Aptitude Tests (DAT). This article looks at some of the best Indian traditional painting styles, the renowned painters and some of their beautiful paintings.

1. Madhubani Painting

This painting style is also called Mithila painting, its features involve elaborate ornament and the use of a wide range of bright colors.

Region of Origin: Bihar's Mithila region.

Unique Attributes: Done with brushing, finger, twig or match stick; subjects range from mythology, wildlife, and folklore; they use natural dye and pigment.

Important Painters and Paintings: One of the most popular painter of India, Sita Devi who specialized in depicting deeper aspects of Hindu mythology.

2. Warli Painting

Region of Origin: Warli tribes, Maharashtra

Unique Attributes: The basic colour and monochromic patterns were made from white pigment on matt-looking backgrounds of mud, charcoal, and cow dung. This is a use of geometric shapes in portraying real-life situations such as farming, dances and rituals.

Important Paintings and Painters: Jivya Soma Mashe is a Warli painter, who gained appreciation from all over the world through his paintings, which speak in detail the essence of the Warli tribal community.

3. Pattachitra

Region of Origin: Odisha and West Bengal.

Unique Attributes: This antique form of pictorial artwork is intricate and highly representative and entails a depiction of legends and heroes often with large, bold strokes clearly and accurately rendered. made up of natural pigments on canvas or dried palm fibres.

Important Paintings and Painters: Art has been the key element in the progression of the art form and keeping it alive is the contribution made by Raghunath Mohapatra, one of the top 5 indian painters.

4. Rajasthani Miniature Painting

Region of Origin: Rajasthan

Unique Attributes: These paintings are highly recognized for their smooth brushwork and brilliant use of colours; most of the paintings depict Hindu mythology, court scenes and portraits of royalties.

Important Paintings and Painters: A special focus can be made on the Kishangarh style which is characterized by dreamy images of Radha and Krishna painted by Nihal Chand using bright and detailed painting.

5. Phad Painting

Region of Origin: Rajasthan

Unique Attributes: Creation myths and stories of local gods and legends are depicted in large flat scroll paintings that are used as a medium for telling a story. that are filled with bright and powerful images and many elaborate storylines.

Important Paintings and Painters: Some of the sculptures created by one of the most famous phad artists Shree Lal Joshi have been quite instrumental towards the revival of these rather traditional Indian art styles.

6. Kalamkari Painting

Region of Origin: Andhra Pradesh.

Unique Attributes: The technique of artwork on fabric using body paints or wooden blocks to create aesthetical designs with natural colours. In most of the times they incorporate elaborate designs of plants and animals combined with Hindu epics.

Important Paintings and Painters: The leading artist is Kalamkari artist J. Niranjan who is known for designing the most detailed and bright patterns.

Kalamkari Painting, Source : https://blog.artlounge.in/blog/2021/4/3/indian-art-form-kalamkari

7. Tanjore Painting

Region of Origin: Tamil Nadu.

Unique Attributes: Often, gold foil is used to depict Hindu deities and their attributes in a very explicit manner, and these are highly praised for their rich colours, depth of surface patina and miniature construction.

Important Paintings and Painters: Rajam is a famous painter belonging to the Tanjore School and her paintings define the overpowering elaboration of the Tanjore style in its true sense.

8. Bengal Patachitra

Region of Origin: West Bengal.

Unique Attributes: There are one or two special features that characterize the method: It is also known as Kalighat painting It is characterised by a combination of black and red outlines with clear and bright colours used to develop themes concerning societal issues and cosmological rendering of mythology.

Important Paintings and Painters: A historian of art, Modernist painter Jamini Roy has taken portions of this style and incorporated these into his paintings.

9. Mysore Painting

Region of Origin: Karnataka

Unique Attributes: This painting was done using a thin foil of gold and concentrates on certain spots and is very elegant and beautiful like the Tanjore paintings.

Important Paintings and Painters: Keshaviah is best known for painting the most beautiful gods and goddesses, epic scenes of battle and love and any other scene from the ‘purans’.

10. Cheriyal Scroll Painting

Region of Origin: Telangana

Unique Attributes: Non-Western, pictorial art form that employs bright colours and heavy lines and tells a story from epics, mythology, and folklore using long scrolls.

Important Paintings and Painters: For this, credit goes to D. Vaikuntam and his distinct and detailed paintings that breathed life into this art style and motivated it further.

11. Bhil Painting

Region of Origin: Bhil tribes in Madhya Pradesh, Gujarat, Maharashtra, and Rajasthan.

Unique Attributes: Depicts an image or a story in a frequent perspective of dots and lines, including tribal gods, nature, and ordinary vices.

Important Paintings and Painters: There is Bhuri Bai who is famous for her colourful elaborate paintings that portray and preserve the Bhil art.

12. Gond Painting

Region of Origin: Madhya Pradesh.

Unique Attributes: Tribal art gond paints use bold colours and intricate designs in an almost minute depiction of objects in their day-to-day life alongside plants. Often incorporate lines and dots in order to work direction and more structure into your picture.

Important Paintings and Painters: Jangarh Singh Shyam can also be named one of the most famous Gond artists, whose works brought this type of art to the international level. In most of his paintings, he incorporates scenes from the life of the Gond people, their gods, and the environment.

13. Chittara Painting

Region of Origin: Karnataka.

Unique Attributes: The Chittara painting is well done by the Devaru community and is a form of painting where geometrical patterns are finely painted on naturally painted handmade paper. This is true because their artworks contain themes of daily life, fertility and even rituals/ ceremonies.

Important Paintings and Painters: Chittaras in the majority are painted by the women of the Devaru community. Leading painters such as Kamala Chinchure have significantly contributed to the preservation and furthering of this historical art genre.

14. Kerala Mural Painting

Region of Origin: Kerala

Unique Attributes: Kerala mural paintings are characterized by bright colours, and excellent workmanship and are traditionally religious in nature; They often depict Hindu gods and goddesses. These paintings are in ‘Ajanta and Dravidian styles’ It was painted on the walls of temples with natural colours.

Important Paintings and Painters: The two best examples of mural painting are located in Padmanabhapuram Palace and Mattancherry Palace. Mammiyoor Krishnan Kutty Nair is a reputed muralist, who has been the key person behind the revival of this somewhat outdated art form.

15. Pichwai Painting

Region of Origin: Rajasthan

Unique Attributes: Pichwai paintings are highly detailed and are painted to narrate stories about Lord Krishna especially from his childhood to his teenage stage. These paintings, often used as wall paintings in temples, are large, bright and detailed works of art.

Important Paintings and Painters: Pichwai painting is focused on Nathdwara, here more than a thousand artisans create very large fabric paintings. Bhupendra Sharma a Pichwai artist who specialises in painting of Lord Krishna is quite popular, and his work is characterised by bright colours and detailed images.

Conclusion :

These traditional paintings give a peek view of the rich Indian culture and tradition of paintings. It is helpful for prospective designers to study these styles to understand the concept of colour, composition and narrative. Starting from the basic geometric patterns of Warli to the intricate and complex designs of Rajasthani Miniature paintings and the illustration of great Hindu epics in Pattachitra, these historic designs are still considered references in modern design. Learning and recognising these art forms increases the dimension of design vocabulary and also strengthens bonds towards the cultural heritage of India.