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Folk art
The folk art of India too exists as an unfettered artistic outburst of its people, be it dance and song or the skill of craft. This is so true of the Mithila painters in Dharbhanga in Bihar where every home is decorated with wall paintings made of natural vegetable colors. The colors are made of flowers, creepers, wood coal, lampblack and leaves. The gum from the bel fruit is used to fix colors. Local bamboo grass is used as a brush. Mithila paintings now available on cloth scrolls or on thick paper evolved basically out of complex religious, social and natural themes that affect the people. Painted by women in little blots of color they reflect the symbiotic relationship of women with nature and include childbirth, marriage, spring and animals in the forest.
The Warli tribals of Maharashtra paint on the cowdung and mud plastered walls of their huts. These are like mandalas, ritualized diagrams conceptualized in white rice paste. Of course, all over the country right from the plains of Uttar Pradesh, the old Indian custom of creating rice paste paintings on the walls and floor of the houses in honour of deities or simply wishing for good things to come their way is common. The forgotten art of story telling
Orissan pata chitra are today quite fashionable though they were nothing initially but a voice of the people eager to narrate stories through painted panels of pressed rags, all coated with a lustrous lacquer polish. Miniature Orissan paintings as well as those from South India show a remarkable engaging humor and a spirited line. Of Orissa there is more. The patachitras have now been fashioned into lacquered boxes and other little bric a brac of utility. A special charm of Orissa is painted and carved wooden boxes that one also finds in Kerala as well. The wooden dowry chests of Kathiawada in Gujarat are also famous. The stone carvers of Orissa reflect the grandeur of a rich past. Soapstone and Kochila stone carvings are perfected. Horn articles of Orissa are well known for their dynamism of structure. The folk artisans of Puri and Cuttack skillfully fashion horn into fragile looking birds, and animals, combs, and other decorative objects. Dhokra metal work is a specialty of tribals in the belt of central India. These bell metal artifacts are marvels of almost primitive conceptualizations that ring a deep echo within you. The flexible brass fish of Ganjam, the wise owl of the Bastar tribals or cire perdue casting of the Sithulia, are all exciting representations of their world.
Kasuti is fine single stitch from Karnataka, while kantha depicts rural landscape scenes using running stitch only in bright colors. The embroideries of the Kutch region in Gujarat are legion; especially their mirror studded embroidery. You can pick up these embroideries all over India on bags, skirts, shoes, duppattas, scarves and blouses |
Folk art everywhere in the world is real and catches the
steady thud of the earth's heartbeat. At its purest it is true,
uninfluenced, and expressing the rawest concerns of its people and
forging the closest links to a people's environment and its
underlying economy. There is no dressing up, no false note. 
The most vibrant and festal wall paintings are found in
Rajasthan. The interior and exterior walls of palaces as well as
ordinary dwellings are an unabashed paean to color. They are made
over completely with huge frescoes of elephants, horses, and camels,
scenes of royal processions and exciting hunts as well as depictions
of mythological characters and stories. Painted wet on lime plaster
in mineral colors the paintings slowly became embedded in the wall
giving the effect of inlay work of colorful stone on white marble,
another specialty of the region. 
The temple and monastery paintings in Tamil Nadu and
Andhra as well as the murals at the Padmanabhapuram Palace in
Kerala reflect their regional skills. The Rathva tribals of
Gujarat and the Bhilala tribals of Madhya Pradesh in central
India paint on the mud walls of their houses the myth of creation.
Sometimes airplanes and clocks also make their appearance in this
essentially tribal worldview. 
Folk art is inevitably linked with the forgotten art of
story telling. Paintings are used to tell visual counterpoint in
narration in every region of India. The Gujarat and Bengal
storytellers neatly divided vertical compartments on paper, each one
depicting a painted incident. In Rajasthan the regional epics like
the Pabuji ki Padh narrate the legends of local heroes and
deities on long horizontal cloth panels. Every inch of space is
peopled by characters from this fictional world. The tradition of
Thanjavur glass painting also depicts mythological subjects in
bright colors and remarkable gold leaf work.. 
Phulkaris and other embroideries also reflect the
peculiar ethos of rural India when time was never at a premium.
Phulkari of course is more than embroidery from the Punjab. It
embodies the colorful aspirations of a people out to wring some joy
from their uncertain lives. Phulkaris were made for different
occasions and the mother or grandmother gave the most precious ones
to her daughter on her wedding day.