The state of Orissa in northeast India has a strong and ancient tradition in the arts. In architecture, dance, and the visual arts, the artists of Orissa have produced works that express both a spiritual sensibility and a delight in the pleasures of life.
One of the strong folk painting traditions of Orissa is that of the patachitras, or paintings on cloth, that are associated with the cult of the god Jagannath. This deity is considered a form of Vishnu. The god's Sanskrit name means "Lord of the world" (from jagan, world, and natha, lord). However, he is almost certainly a pre-Aryan god assimilated into Hinduism, whose name represents a sanskritization of a tribal word.
Many towns and villages in northeast India have temples to Jagannath, but his chief place of worship is his great 12th-century temple in Puri, a seaside city on the Bay of Bengal. Here, as elsewhere, he is not worshiped alone, but as part of a triad of deities that includes his brother Balabhadra and his sister Subhadra. Jagannath is identified with Krishna, Balabhadra with Krishna's brother Balarama, and Subhadra with the goddess Bhubaneshwari. The images of the deities are large painted wood sculptures (in Puri around 6 feet tall) that have an abstracted human form. [photos: Jagannath temple, Puri / Jagannath temple, Medinipur / Jagannath temple, Kharagpur]
In the vicinity of the Puri Jagannath temple live families of painters known as chitrakaras (picture-makers). The most skilled of these artists perform painting tasks for the temple. These include preparing works related to festivals; the painting of anasara patis, which are paintings that annually and temporarily replace the principal images of the sacred triad in the inner sanctum while those deities are considered "ill" and unavailable for viewing by the faithful; and the painting of the cars, or chariots, on which the three deities ride during the annual ratha yatra (car festival) each summer.
Chitrakaras also paint patachitras for the thousands of pilgrims who come to receive the darshan (viewing) of Jagannath. Pilgrims purchase a patachitra painting as a memento of their visit or as a gift for friends or family back home. Images of Jagannath, of Vishnu, and of other gods and goddesses are common (as described below). Chitrakaras may also paint statues and dowry boxes (pedis).
Sometimes, a master painter supervises the work of various relatives in a family shop. Other master artists operate studios in which apprentices and other artists of varying levels of skill work under their direction. Such studios are found in Puri and in nearby villages of Raghurajpur and Dandasahi. [photos: artists' studios]
The process of producing a patachitra begins with the gluing together of two sheets of cotton and the spreading of glue over one external surfaced. After this cloth is dried in the sun, it is cut into the desired sizes for the artworks and the surface is burnished with successfully smoother pebbles to prepare it for painting. The design is then sketched on the surface and the areas are filled in with primary colors. Traditionally these colors were prepared from vegetable or mineral pigments, but currently commercially prepared colors are used also. Details are painted in over the areas of solid color. The patachitras are usually covered with a coat of lacquer when they are completed. The final work has a leatherlike consistency.
The artists use a standard palette of colors, including red, blue, yellow, green, black, white, and pink. Red has been the most common color used for background spaces since at least the 19th century. In the late 20th century, however, a style of patachitra developed that uses white on black. Without competition from bright colors, the wonderful calligraphy of these monochrome works dominates the pictures. In the color paintings, the spectrum has expanded in recent decades, not only in the use of blue, white, and other colors in the background, but of more colors for the main figures in the painting.
Figures in patachitras are typically shown with a frontal view of the body but a profile view of the head. They do not usually overlap; that is, one character in a painting will not be shown in front of another. In the chitrakaras' style of drawing faces, noses are extended, chins jut out somewhat from the face, and the eyes are elongated. Individual characters in patachitras have their own iconography. For example, sages are depicted with matted hair, Krishna bears a plume, and queens wear mango-shaped crowns. Color too has an identifying function: Krishna's body is blue, his brother Balarama is white, Radha is yellow, and Rama is green.
Traditionally, shading is not used in patachitras, as there is no attempt to convey volume in the figures. Perspective is also absent. Usually the paintings have a double border, one (inner and narrower) with a leaf-and-scroll motif and one (outer and wider) with a floral motif. Background spaces are filled in with stylized forms.
Scholars through the 1980s identified six groups of themes in patachitra painting. The first of these is Jagannath himself and the triad of deities. The most common type in this group is an iconic portrait of the deities as they appear in the inner sanctum of the temple. They are painted in one of the several veshas, or dresses, in which they are adorned at different times of the day or year. Another common type is a scene from the mythology of Jagannath. For example, the story known as kanchi avijana (journey to Kanchi) tells how Jagannath and Balabhadra rode into battle to assist a royal devotee. Finally a third type shows a schematic vision of the Puri temple complex. One example, known as thia-badhia, includes the central tower of the temple surrounded by other architectural spaces and mythological stories. (See examples of these on the patachitra page.)
A second group of themes is that which depicts episodes from the Hindu epics, such as the Ramayana, and from puranas, such as the Srimad Bhagavata Purana. Theformer epic tells the story of the hero-god Rama. Paintings might depict the king Ravana abducting Rama's wife Sita or Rama releasing the ascetic's wife Ahalya from her husband's curse. (See examples of these on the patachitra page.) The latter purana is a devotional text that recounts mythological stories, most notably those relating to the boyhood of Krishna. Paintings illustrate incidents such as Krishna lifting Mount Govardhan to protect the villagers from the arrows of Indra, or Krishna overcoming the snake demon Kaliya who was poisoning the waters of the river. (See examples of these on the patachitra page.)
Given the association of patachitras with Jagannath temples, it is not surprising that a vast number of paintings show Vaishnava themes (i.e., associated with Vishnu or his forms such as Jagannath or his incarnations such as Rama and Krishna). However, the depiction of other deities comprises the third group of themes. For example, paintings might show Sarasvati (goddess of learning and music) playing her vina, the elephant-headed god Ganesh, and the fierce goddess Kali standing atop the prostrate Siva. (See examples of these on the patachitra page.)
A fourth general theme presents stories from folklore. An example is the nava-gunjara, in which Vishnu appears to his devotee Arjuna in the form of a composite animal. A fifth group of themes are the erotic themes. These include the kandarpa-ratha, in which the cowherd girls who are in love with Krishna form themselves into a chariot in which Krishna rides. A sixth group of themes are simple pictures of animals and birds.
Chitrakaras have practiced their craft, illustrating these themes, for hundreds of years. Unfortunately, in the early 20th century, the patachitra tradition experienced a decline. However, it was revived in the 1950s, thanks to the efforts of a western woman who was working on a rural improvement project in Orissa. She took a keen interest in this art form and promoted it through exhibitions in several countries. The audience for patachitras still includes pilgrims and devotees, but the paintings are also sought after by collectors both in India and the West.
With this expansion into the wider art world, chitrakaras have experimented with new themes, beyond the traditional ones listed above. For example, landscapes and village scenes have appeared at the turn of the 21st century. (See examples of these on the patachitra page.) Religious scenes might be decorated with more detailed landscape elements. Further, the artists now paint backgrounds in a wider range of colors than the formerly near-ubiquitous red, and they occasionally introduce new techniques of shading and single point perspective in their works. Also, the artists now paint on silk (these paintings are known as tasser) (see examples of these on the patachitra page) as well as on the traditional prepared cloth.
These changes comprise one of many examples of how a folk tradition adapts, thematically and technically, in its encounter with the international—especially Western—art world. It is yet to be seen whether and how it will be invigorated or debilitated. But at the beginning of the second decade of the 21st century, the patachitra tradition remains vibrant.
For More Information
Cesarone, Bernard. (2001). Pata-Chitras of Orissa: An Illustration of Some Common Themes. Asian Arts (May 16). [Online]. Available at: http://www.asianart.com/articles/patachitra/index.html.
Chandra, Sarat. (2001). "Beshas of the Puri Triad." Arts of Asia 31(4, July-August 2001): 80-96.
Cooper, Ilay, and John Gillow. (1996). Arts and Crafts of India. London: Thames and Hudson. (See chapter on "Miniatures to Papier-Mache.")
Das, J.P. (1982). Puri Paintings: The Chitrakara and His Work. Atlantic Highlands, NJ: Humanities Press.
Fischer, Eberhard, and Dinanath Pathy. (2001). "Traditional Painting." In Pratapaditya Pal, Ed., Orissa Revisited, pp.105-130. Mumbai, India: Marg Publications.
Mohanty, B. (1980). Patachitras of Orissa. (Study of Contemporary Textile Crafts of India). Ahmedabad, India: Calico Museum of Textiles.
Mohanty, B. (1984). Pata-Painting of Orissa. New Delhi: Publications Division, Ministry of Information and Broadcasting, Government of India.
Rossi, Barbara. (1998). From the Ocean of Painting: India’s Popular Paintings 1589 to the Present. New York: Oxford University Press. (See section, “Puri Paintings," p.71.)
Shree Jagannath Temple Administration, Puri. Shree Jagannath temple official website. http://jagannath.nic.in/
Starza, O.M. (1993). The Jagannatha Temple at Puri: Its Architecture, Art and Cult. Leiden: E.J. Brill.
Three folk art traditions of northeast India