PATAN PATOLA - ART AND CULTURE
News: Modi gifts Italian PM a Patan Patola scarf: What is the ancient Gujarat art form
What's in the news?
● At the G20 summit, Prime Minister Narendra Modi gifted traditional artworks from Gujarat and Himachal Pradesh to world leaders.
Key takeaways:
PM
Modi presented several traditional artworks to world leaders such as
● US
President Joe Biden with Kangra miniature paintings.
● UK
PM Rishi Sunak with ‘Mata Ni Pachedi’, a handmade Gujarat textile offered in
temples.
● ‘Pithora’,
a tribal folk art from Chhota Udaipur, to Australian leader Anthony Albanese.
● Agate
bowls from Kutch to the leaders of France, Germany and Singapore.
● ‘Patan Patola’ scarf to his Italian counterpart Giorgia Meloni.
Patan Patola:
● The
ancient art of double ikat or Patola
woven in pure silk dates back to the 11th century.
● The
Patola fabrics bear an equal intensity of colors and design on both sides.
● This
peculiar quality has its origins in an intricate and difficult technique of dyeing or knot dyeing, known as ‘bandhani’,
on the warp and weft separately before weaving.
● One
of the major practitioners of the dwindling art form is the Salvi family from
North Gujarat.
● The Salvis:
○ The
Salvi family shared that before World War II, Indonesia was the major buyer of
Patolas.
● Patola is woven on primitive hand-operated harness looms made out of rosewood and bamboo strips.
Rajkot Patola Vs Patan Patola:
● The
main difference here is that while the Rajkot Patola uses chemical dyes, Patan
uses vegetable dyes.
● A
Rajkot Patola weighs over 600 grams, while a Patola from Patan would weigh
under 500 grams.
● The
motifs in Patan Patolas are sharp, while the Rajkot ones are hazy.
Kangra miniature paintings:
● The Kangra school refers to the painting which existed in the Kangra valley and in the adjacent Punjab plains.
● In
Kangra paintings, the main theme is the story of Lord Krishna.
● There
are some naturalistic drawings of flowers and fruits but no “Ragamalas”.
● The
colour is tender and charming. The eyes of figures are long strokes of the
brush as in the Ajanta paintings.
● The
paintings are realistic and prove
that the artists have studied nature.
● The
Kangra style can be seen in the paintings during the period of Shah Jahan in whose time Molaram, a
painter was a descendant of Rajput painters, worked at the Mughal court.
‘Mata Ni Pachedi’:
● ‘Mata Ni Pachedi’ is also called the Kalamkari of Gujarat thanks to its resemblance to the art of Kalamkari from South India and the same method of painting, namely using a pen (kalam) made out of bamboo.
● Mata
ni pachedi means ‘behind the mother
goddess’ and is a cloth that constitutes a temple of the goddess.
● The
story goes that when the nomadic Vaghari
community from Gujarat who worship Mata, were not allowed to enter temples,
they instead created their own places of worship with illustrations of the
Mother Goddess (Mata) on pieces of cloth.
● Traditionally, these pachedis are hand-painted or block-printed on cotton, hand spun cloth of rectangular shape, and natural and mineral colours are utilized for filling the spaces and in the dyeing process.
Agate bowls from Kutchh:
● The semi-precious stone is found in underground mines of Rajpipla and Ratanpur in riverbeds, and extracted to produce a variety of ornamental objects.
Pithora Painting:
● Pithora
Painting is a tribal painting of India that belongs to the Rathwas, Bhilals, Nayaks and Tadi tribes, residing in and around Chhota
Udaipur and Kawat in eastern Gujarat and parts of western Madhya Pradesh.
● Traditionally, Pithora painting is revered by the Rathwa tribe.
● Features:
○ It
is a wall painting that is mainly characterized by the seven horses.
○ It
is believed that these seven horses represent the seven hills that surround the
Gujarat-Madhya Pradesh border areas.