Montesque indigo 7 ft. 6 in portable#

Styles were differentiated by region and caste - particularly the Brahmin, Kayastha and Harijan castes. As with the wall paintings, these individual works were painted with natural plant and mineral-derived colors, using bamboo twigs in lieu of brush or pen.Ī wide range of styles and qualities of Mithila art have evolved over the ensuing sixty years. The work was enthusiastically bought by tourists and folk art collectors alike.

Montesque indigo 7 ft. 6 in portable#

Once applied to a portable and thus more visible medium, the skills of the Mithila women were quickly recognized. The women of Mithila were encouraged by the All-India Handicrafts Board to apply their painting skills to paper as a means of supplementing their meager incomes. The contemporary art of Mithila painting was born in the early 1960’s, following a terrible drought and famine in Bihar. The kohbar ghar paintings are based on mythological, folk themes and tantric symbolism, though the central theme is invariably love and fertility.

In both countries an ancient domestic wall painting tradition has been adapted to painting on paper, but it has evolved differently and at different times in the two countries.įor centuries the women of Mithila have decorated the walls of their houses with intricate, linear designs on the occasion of marriages and other ceremonies, Painting is a key part of the education of Mithila women, culminating in the painting of the walls of the kohbar, or nuptial chamber on the occasion of a wedding. The historic Mithila kingdom once spread across the southeast plains of Nepal and the northern Bihar and Jharkhand states of India. The Maithil paintings of Nepal and the Mithila or Madhubani paintings of Northern Bihar, India are two sides of the same art form.