WARLI PAINTING - ART & CULTURE

News: Life through geometry in Warli

 

What's in the news?

       The triangles, circles and lines in austere white against a mud brown background align to tell stories of village life and the customs and traditions there on walls and canvasses.

 

Key takeaways:

       Warli represents the daily routine of rural life, the relationship of the tribal people with nature, their gods, myths, traditions, customs, and festivities.

 

Warli Paintings:

       It is a style of tribal art created by the tribal people from the North Sahyadri Range in Maharashtra.

       This art form can be traced back to 10th century AD but was first discovered and appreciated for its distinctive style only in the early 1970s.

       It was traditionally practised by women of the Warli tribe called Suvasinis, who decorated the Lagn Chowk or the wedding square.

 

Theme and Features:

       Warli represents the daily routine of rural life, the relationship of the tribal people with nature, their gods, myths, traditions, customs and festivities.

       These rudimentary wall paintings use a set of basic geometric shapes - a circle, a triangle, and a square.

       The central motif in each ritual painting is the square, known as the "chauk" or "chaukat", mostly of two types known as Devchauk and Lagnachauk.

       One of the central aspects depicted in many Warli paintings is the tarpa dance.

       The tarpa, a trumpet-like instrument, is played in turns by different village men.

       Men and women entwine their hands and move in a circle around the tarpa player.

       Cleverly modified bamboo sticks are used as paint brushes to create the paintings.

       The colours and materials used for the paintings are derived from nature like brown and orange from henna, indigo from dye, red from bricks and white from thick rice paste.