Introduction
Walk through a village in Bihar during the wedding season and you will find the women of the house painting the walls. Not decorating them. Painting them, the way a practised hand does, with the kind of confidence that comes from watching your mother do the same thing, and her mother before her.
That is how most of India's art has always worked; as something ordinary people did because it needed doing. Ritual, season, belief, and landscape all shaped how a community chose to represent the world around it. The result, accumulated over centuries across a subcontinent this large and this varied, is a body of traditional Indian art that has no real equivalent anywhere else.
The traditions in this piece come from different corners of India, different communities, different ways of seeing. Some are tribal, some courtly, some devotional, some purely narrative. What they share is a visual intelligence that took generations to develop, and a staying power that no amount of modernisation has touched. They are living crafts, still made by hand, still carried forward by artists who inherited the knowledge directly.
This is a guide to 10 of the most significant among them.
The Diversity of Indian Art
Madhubani Art (Bihar)
The Mithila region of northern Bihar has been producing Indian Madhubani painting for thousands of years. Some accounts trace it to the time of the Ramayana, when King Janaka commissioned paintings for his daughter Sita's wedding. Whether or not that origin story holds up historically, it tells you something about how this tradition sees itself: old, ceremonial, and tied to the most significant moments in a family's life.
Rama's messenger in Madhubani by Priti Karn
For most of its history, Madhubani was painted on freshly plastered mud walls by the women of the household. Figures from mythology sat alongside nature, fertility symbols, and scenes from everyday life, all executed in colours derived from plants and minerals. The shift to paper and cloth came later, largely as a response to economic need, but the visual language stayed the same.
Key features:
- Bright primary colours traditionally derived from plants and minerals
- Intricate compositions where no space is left unfilled
- Distinctive double outlines that give each figure its bold definition
- Themes from mythology, nature, and festival cycles: the Ramayana, Krishna, the lotus, bridal ceremonies
- Sub-styles include Bharni (colour-filled), Kachni (fine line work), and Tantrik (geometric and symbolic)
The Madhubani art of Bihar gained international recognition in the 1960s after a severe drought prompted the Indian government to encourage women to sell their wall paintings on paper. What had been a private, domestic practice became visible to the world almost overnight. MeMeraki's Madhubani collection brings together all three sub-styles, sourced from artists in the Mithila region who have carried the craft across generations.
Warli Art (Maharashtra)
This Indian tribal art from the Warli tribe of Maharashtra builds entire worlds from the most basic geometry: circles, triangles, and lines on a dark mud-coloured background. No ornamentation, no fills, no shading. Just white paint and the geometry of daily life.
What makes Warli paintings compelling is not their simplicity but what they do with it. A wedding procession, a harvest festival, a hunt in the forest: all of it captured in figures that look almost childlike until you spend time with them and realise how much information is actually there. The scale of a scene, the relationship between figures, the presence of gods alongside farmers and animals: it is all precisely arranged.
Village Life: Warli by Dilip Bahotha
Key features:
- White on dark or mud-coloured backgrounds. Traditionally prepared using rice paste on mud-plastered walls.
- Human and animal figures built from geometric shapes: triangles for torsos, circles for heads
- Scenes of village life: farming, fishing, weddings, and harvest celebrations
- No perspective, no shading, no decorative fill
- A strong presence of nature: forests, rivers, birds, and the cycle of seasons appear throughout
Warli has found a wide international audience, which is somewhat ironic given how deeply local its subject matter is. The appeal is probably its legibility: you do not need to know anything about Hindu mythology or regional iconography to understand what is happening in a Warli painting. MeMeraki features works by artisans from the Dahanu region of Maharashtra, many of whom learned the form from master artist Anil Wangad.
Pattachitra (Odisha and West Bengal)
Pattachitra comes from the Sanskrit for cloth (patta) and picture (chitra), which tells you the basics: these are painted scrolls, made on treated cloth, that tell stories. What it does not tell you is the level of detail involved, or the degree to which this tradition is bound up with temple culture in Odisha, particularly the Jagannath temple at Puri.
Woman With Conch - Pattachitra Painting by Apindra Swain for Home Decor
The artists who make Pattachitra, known as Chitrakars, traditionally lived near the temple and supplied it with paintings. The subject matter reflects the Ramayana, the Mahabharata, the stories of Lord Jagannath, scenes from Krishna's life. Every panel is framed by an elaborate floral border, and every figure is outlined in bold black before colour is applied. The result is something that looks simultaneously ancient and graphic.
Key features:
- Detailed mythological storytelling in sequential panels
- Executed on treated cloth or palm leaves (Talapatra)
- Bold black outlines with rich vegetable-based colours: red, yellow, blue, white, black
- Decorative floral borders framing every composition
- Rooted in the temple art traditions of Puri
Pattachitra sits among India's finest Indian miniature paintings traditions in terms of its technical demands, even when the works themselves are large. MeMeraki's Pattachitra collection features artisan families from Raghurajpur, the village in Odisha that has been home to this tradition for centuries.
Kalamkari (Andhra Pradesh and Telangana)
Kalamkari takes its name from the Persian for pen work, and that is exactly what it is: paintings drawn directly onto fabric using a bamboo pen, with natural dyes made from plants and minerals. The tradition is over 3,000 years old and comes from Andhra Pradesh, where it developed in close relationship with temple culture. The artists, known as Kalamkars, were once a travelling community who painted temple walls and sang ballads about the epics they depicted.
Kalia Mardan in kalamkari by Siva Reddy
There are two distinct styles. The Srikalahasti style is entirely hand-drawn using kalam, a bamboo pen, with fine, intricate lines and a preference for mythological subjects. The Machlipatnam style uses wooden blocks to print the outlines, which are then filled in by hand using the same kalam. Both use the same natural processes, which involves multiple rounds of mordanting, dyeing, and sun-drying before each colour is fixed.
Key features:- Produced either by hand-drawing (Srikalahasti style) or block printing (Machilipatnam style)
- Natural vegetable dyes sourced from indigo, pomegranate rind, myrobalan, and iron-jaggery to name a few.
- Mythological and narrative scenes from the Ramayana, Mahabharata, and temple traditions
- Complex floral and animal motifs filling the composition
- Executed on cotton fabric treated with natural mordants
The labour involved in Indian folk art like Kalamkari is considerable. A single large panel can take weeks. MeMeraki's Kalamkari collection carries works from both the Srikalahasti and Machilipatnam traditions.
Gond Art (Madhya Pradesh)
The Gond are one of the largest tribal communities in India, spread across the forests of Madhya Pradesh, and their painting tradition is unlike anything else in Indian art. It is rooted in a belief that depicting something gives it power, that seeing an animal or a tree or a god painted with care and attention strengthens its presence in the world. That belief shows in the work.
Tribal Gond art by Sukhiram Maravi
Gond art of Madhya Pradesh is immediately recognisable: every figure, whether a peacock or a tiger or a human being, is filled with a dense network of dots, dashes, lines, and patterns. Nothing is left as flat colour. The effect is of forms that seem to vibrate, as though the thing depicted is alive in a way that solid colour could never capture.
Key features:
- Every form filled with intricate dots, dashes, lines, and geometric textures
- Animals, birds, trees, and forests as primary subjects
- Bright, often unexpected colour combinations
- Rooted in tribal folklore and animist belief
- A symbolic logic where a peacock may represent beauty or rain, and a horse may carry a deity
The Gond art tradition of Madhya Pradesh gained wider recognition through the artist Jangarh Singh Shyam in the 1980s, and continues today with artists from his lineage like Venkat Shyam. His paintings, along with works by other artists from the Patangarh region, are part of MeMeraki's Gond collection.
Phad Painting (Rajasthan)
Phad paintings are large narrative scrolls from Rajasthan, and they were never meant to hang on a wall. They were made to travel. The Bhopa (priest) community of storytellers would carry these painted cloths from village to village, unrolling them at night in front of a gathered audience, pointing to each scene while singing the ballads of folk heroes like Pabuji and Devnarayan. The painting was a prop as much as an artwork: a visual aid for stories that everyone in the audience already knew, but never tired of hearing.
The Procession, Phad Painting by Kalyan Joshi
This performance context shaped everything about how Phad looks. The figures are large and clear, readable from a distance. The narrative moves across the cloth in panels, although not in a linear fashion, stretched across several metres of handspun fabric.
Key features:- Narrative scroll paintings on long pieces of cloth, sometimes several metres in length
- Stories of Rajasthani folk heroes and local deities in episodic panels
- Bold, flat colours: predominantly orange, red, yellow, and green
- Expressive, stylised figures with strong outlines, designed to be read from a distance
- Traditionally created by the Joshi community of Bhilwara
The Rajasthani painting art tradition of Phad is one of the few art forms in India built around performance from the start. Today the scrolls are also collected independently of the storytelling tradition, though the best artists still make them with the same scale and clarity the original context demanded. MeMeraki's phad paintings collection includes authentic Phad works alongside related Rajasthani miniature paintings.
Tanjore Painting (Tamil Nadu)
Tanjore paintings come from the royal courts of Thanjavur in Tamil Nadu, and they look like it. Gold foil applied over raised gesso, semi-precious stones pressed into the surface, symmetrical compositions of gods and goddesses in full regalia: this is Indian art at its most formally elaborate, made for patrons who wanted their devotion to be visible.
The technical process is significant. Before any painting begins, the surface is built up with chalk paste and adhesive to create three-dimensional relief sections, typically the jewellery and clothing of the central deity. Semi-precious stones are set on the embossed surface, which is then covered with real gold foil. Only after this foundation is complete does the painting itself begin. The result is less a painting in the conventional sense than a gilded icon.
Balaji in Tanjore by Sanjay Tandekar
Key features:
- Three-dimensional relief work created through layered chalk paste and adhesive
- Gold foil applied to jewellery, clothing, and architectural elements
- Almost exclusively religious themes: Lakshmi, Ganesha, Krishna, and Rama as central subjects
- Semi-precious stones and glass embedded to add texture and shimmer
- Symmetrical, frontal compositions with the deity placed centrally
Tanjore paintings were traditionally gifted to temples and nobility, and the best examples have a presence that makes their original context easy to imagine. MeMeraki carries Tanjore works through its paintings collection.
Lippan Art (Gujarat)
Lippan Kaam is a wall art form from the Kutch district of Gujarat, made from mud and mirrors. The process involves building up patterns in clay directly onto a wall surface, pressing small pieces of mirror glass into the wet clay before it dries. The finished surface catches light and throws it back into the room, which in a desert environment with limited artificial lighting is a practical effect as much as a decorative one.
Harmony of Hues: Lippan art by Majikhan For Home Decor, Gifting
The mirrors were also believed to deflect the evil eye, reflecting it back before it could settle. That combination of the practical and the protective is typical of how traditional Indian art tends to work: beauty and function were rarely separated.
Key features:
- Three-dimensional mud relief work combined with mirror inlay
- Geometric and floral patterns built up in layers of clay
- Traditionally created on the interior walls of rural homes in the Kutch desert
- Mirrors believed to ward off the evil eye
- An aesthetic that comes directly from the materials and landscape of the region
Lippan has moved well beyond its original context in recent years, appearing as framed wall art in homes across India and internationally. MeMeraki's Lippan collection carries authentic works from Kutch, made by artisans keeping the tradition in its most original form.
Pithora Painting (Gujarat and Madhya Pradesh)
Pithora paintings are not made to be sold or displayed. They are made to fulfil a vow. When a family in the Rathwa, Bhilala, or Bhil communities of Gujarat and Madhya Pradesh faces illness, infertility, or misfortune, and prays to Pithora Baba, the deity of food grains, and the prayer is answered, the family is obligated to commission a painting as an act of thanksgiving. The painting is created on the main interior wall of the house in a ceremony led by a tribal priest, with the artist working alongside a group of seven or eight men.
Baba Pithora and Pithora Rani Riding Horses in Pithora Art by Chanchal Soni
Every Pithora painting follows a rough template: horses carrying deities, the sun and moon, village scenes, and scenes from the legends of creation, all painted in bright colours on a white clay background the Rathwa consider sacred. But no two paintings are identical. Each artist leaves a personal mark embedded in the composition to claim creative ownership.
Key features:
- Ritual function: made to fulfil a vow to Pithora Baba
- The horse is the most important motif, representing deities and ancestors
- Bright colours on a white clay background considered sacred by the Rathwa tribe
- Lively compositions depicting village life, celestial bodies, gods, and the legends of creation
- No two paintings are identical: each artist leaves a personal mark
The ritual context means that Indian tribal art painting like Pithora carries a weight that purely decorative art rarely does.
Cheriyal Scroll Painting (Telangana)
About a hundred kilometres north of Hyderabad lies the village of Cheriyal, and from this village comes one of India's most vivid narrative traditions. Cheriyal scrolls are long painted cloths, traditionally up to 40 or 45 metres, that were used by a community of travelling storytellers called Nakashis. They would unroll the scroll panel by panel in front of a gathered audience, singing the story as each scene was revealed.
Cheriyal Wall Plates by Sai Kiran
