About

Madhubani paintings or Mithila Paintings is a style of Indian painting, practiced in the Mithila region of Bihar state, India.The name is itself named on the village Madhubani. .It is a traditional Indian art form.

Mithila, the birthplace of Sita of the Ramayana, lies in the state of Bihar, bounded by the Himalayas in the north and the rivers Kosi, Ganga and Gandak in the east, south and west respectively. Over centuries, the people of Mithila have developed their own tradition of art, popularly known as Madhubani painting, named after a district and a town in the region



The Madhubani painting or Mithila Painting are originated at the time of the Ramayana, when King Janak commissioned artists to do paintings at the time of marriage of his daughter, Sita, to Hindu god Lord Ram.Madhubani paintings mostly depict nature and Hindu devotional events, and the themes generally revolve around Hindu deities like Krishna, Ram, Shiva, Durga, Lakshmi, and Saraswati. Natural objects like the sun, the moon, and the religious plants like tulsi are also widely painted, alongside scenes from the royal courts and social events like weddings. Generally no empty space is left; the gaps are filled by paintings of flowers, animals, birds, and even geometric designs.

The colors used were traditionally derived from natural sources like plants, charcoal soot, ochre etc. Black color is obtained by mixing soot with cow dung.Yellow colour is obtained from turmeric or pollen or lime and the milk of banyan leaves. Blue from Indigo. Red from Kusum flower juice, red sandalwood or rose. Green from the leaves of apple trees, White from rice powder, Orange from palasha flowers. There are 3 styles of Madhubani painting
1.Brahmin Style 2. Tatoo Style 3.Kshatriya Style

Among the first modern outsiders to document the tradition of Madhubani paintings were William and Mildred Archer. Archer was a British civil servant assigned to the district during the colonial era. The Archers obtained some drawings on paper that the women painters were using as aids to memory. Works that the Archers collected went to the India Records Office in London (now part of the British Library) where a small number of specialists could study them as creative instances of India's folk art.

Madhubani Art gained recognition in India in the late 1960's. After a drought in the region there was a severe economic crisis. In order to create a new source of non-agricultural income, the All-India Handicrafts Board encouraged the women artists to produce their traditional paintings on handmade paper for commercial sale. Since then, painting has become a primary source of income for scores of families. It is a tribute to the resourcefulness of the women of Mithila who have successfully transferred their techniques of bhitti chitra or wall-painting to the medium of paper.

Since the 1990s, Japan has shown a keen interest in Madhubani paintings, mainly because of the initiative taken by Tokyo Hasegawa, who set up the Mithila Museum in Tokamachi, where around 850 Madhubani paintings are exhibited on a regular basis.Madhubani paintings have good demands in foreign market