Popular art is the expression of
people’s sensitivity. Importance of popular art reside in the fact that it
simultaneously creates a form of artistic expression while revealing the
psychology of the society from which it emerges, reflecting its moral values
and customs.
Mithila painting, also known as
Madhubani painting, is in its originality an art form practiced by the women of
all castes and communities of the region. The women of this country from time
immemorial have been involving themselves in the various forms of creativity.
The best one can find in their creativity is the relationship between nature,
culture and human psyche. Also they use only those raw materials, which are
available easily in abundance in the locality they are surrounded with. Through
folk paintings and other forms of art they express their desire, dream,
expectation and amuse themselves. It is a parallel literacy by which they
communicate their aesthetic expression.
Madhubani is the heartland where the
paintings are more profuse than elsewhere. “The region’s rich vegetation so
impressed ancient visitors that they called it Madhubani, ‘Forest of Honey’. In
Mithila a woman does painting on the wall, surface, movable objects, and
canvas; makes images of gods, goddesses, animals and mythological characters
from the lump of clay; prepares objects such as baskets, small containers, and
play items from sikki grass; does embroidery on quilt – popularly known as
kethari and sujani; sings varieties of ritual and work songs. These artistic
activities are done by a lady as a routine work that makes her a complete
creative personality: a singer, a sculptor, a painter, an embroidery design
maker and what not! Without knowing these primary details one may not
understand the aesthetic wonder of Mithila paintings. From generation to generation the women of
Mithila have produced a vigorous distinctive painting.
That this traditional art has
survived the innumerable vicissitudes of history is due, first of all, to the
social organization of Mithila, one based on the village community, in whose
corporate life the women have clearly understood roles. Beyond their extended
families, the women artists work for a rural society with whose requirements
they are perfectly acquainted. It This communal village life is strengthened
and sustained by the universal prevalence of social gatherings, traditional
storytelling, dancing and singing festivities and ceremonies, processions and rituals.The source of folk art of Madhubani lie on the dim areas of
silence, of the approximation to the heightened moments of creation itself.
…………………………………………
Ironically, while there has been
little recent interest in Mithila painting in India, it is becoming well known
and much appreciated in other parts of the world. There have been numerous
exhibitions of Mithila paintings either alone, or with other Indian art forms,
in the US, France, Germany, Switzerland as well as those regularly organized by
Tokio Hasegawa in Japan. These exhibitions often result in sales of paintings
and the production of an illustrated catalogue. Aside from the Mithila Museum
in Japan, there are now large collections of Mithila paintings and photos of
paintings from the 1930s and 1940s from the Richard and Mildred Archer in the
British Library, in San Francisco Asian Art Museum, the Berkeley Art Museum,
the Oberlin University Museum, the Syracuse University Library, the University
of Florida Museum, Heidelberg University, and no doubt others.
However,
despite the work of Jyotindra Jain at the Craft Museum, his book on Ganga Devi,
and a number of National and Bihar state awards, recognitions and helpful hands
of so called ‘Outsiders’ , several exhibitions for promotion of the art , appreciation of Mithila painting within India has generally declined.
Undoubtedly there are numerous explanations for this. But central among
them must be the stacks of repetitive, mass-produced, and supposedly
“traditional,” “Madhubani paintings” found at Dilli Haat, various melas,
and urban emporia. These images are the products of a sub-set
of the painters who, rather than reflecting their own experience and
perceptions of themselves and the world around them, simply see painting as a
tool with which to produce standardized images to meet the demand of dealers
who claim the only market for their paintings is from the Indian and foreign tourists
seeking a “traditional” painting to put on their wall. For
many of these painters, such paintings, even if they are paid little for them,
are an essential, sometimes a sole source of family income.
Unfortunately, the repetition of this narrow range of hastily done paintings
has, in the eyes of the more discerning public, devalued Mithila painting,
undercutting appreciation for its more innovative imagery and its capacity to
serve as a broader language of contemporary expression.
