The Gonds traditionally painted on mud walls of their houses. Starting in the early 1980s, certain talented Pardhan Bhil painting Gonds who traditionally serve as professional bardic priests began transforming their ritual performing arts into a new tradition of figurative and narrative visual art: using a variety of modern media (including acrylic paintings on canvas, ink drawings on paper, silkscreen prints, and animated film) they have created unprecedented depictions of their natural and mythological worlds, traditional songs and oral histories.
MADHUBANI
Madhubani, which literal translates into Forest of Honey, is a small village in northern Bihar.The origins of Madhubani (or Mithila) art are shrouded in antiquity. Tradition states that this art style dates back to mythology of the Ramayana, when King Janak commissioned artists to do paintings at the time of marriage of his daughter, Sita, to Lord Ram. However the contemporary art of Mithila painting was born in the early 1960’s, following the terrible famine in Bihar. It was Baskar Kulkarni from the All India Handicraft Board in Delhi who recognized the commercial potential of this folk art form and urged the villagers to also paint on handmade paper to supplement their meager income and alleviate the poverty of the region. Over the past fifty years a wide range of styles of Mithila art have evolved, with styles differentiated by region and caste. There are mainly three schools: Kayastha, Brahmin, and Tattoo.
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