The Vibrant Palette of Gond Painting: Colors, Symbolism & Tradition

Introduction: The Forest as Canvas
Earth-Made: Traditional Sources of Colour
Colour as Cosmology: Symbolism in the Gond Palette
Patterned Vision: How Colour Moves
New Mediums, Ancient Messages: Gond Painting Today
Conclusion: Listening to Colour

Introduction: The Forest as Canvas

In the heart of Central India, where the canopy of the forest breathes and murmurs ancient stories, Gond painting was born—not in galleries, but on the mud-plastered walls of homes, beneath the sacred shadows of sal trees and along the remembered paths of ancestors. Practiced by the Gond tribe, one of the largest Indigenous communities in India, this art form is far more than visual ornamentation. It is a language of devotion, of ritual, of ecological observation, and above all, of storytelling.

Among its many defining features, it is the use of colour that captivates most viscerally. Colour in Gond art is not used merely for beauty—it is a spiritual and narrative force. Each hue is chosen with care, anchored in meaning, and layered with memory. A tree painted green does not merely signify flora; it evokes sustenance, kinship, and protection. A tiger in red pulses not with menace, but with ancestral power. This essay journeys into the vibrant, symbolic palette of Gond art to explore how colour serves as both medium and message, offering a glimpse into a world where the forest speaks in pigments.

Branched Shelter: Tree of life in Gond by Manoj Tekam

Earth-Made: Traditional Sources of Colour

Before the advent of acrylics, Gond artists sourced their colours from the very earth they lived on. This palette was not bought in tubes or pans—it was foraged, ground, fermented, and prepared with hands that also knew how to plant seeds, gather firewood, and prepare offerings to the gods.

Red was drawn from geru, a rich ochre soil found near riverbeds or extracted after digging deep into the earth. Yellow came from turmeric, sometimes brightened with cow dung or softened with plant sap. Leaves crushed between stones provided shades of green, while soot from wood fires and charcoal offered black. White was often prepared from rice flour paste or powdered limestone. Indigo plants or certain wild berries occasionally yielded deep blue, though it was rarer. These colours were mixed with natural binders—tree resins, cow dung, or water—to ensure texture and longevity.

This practice wasn’t merely utilitarian; it reflected a profound ecological ethic. Pigments were seasonal, extracted sustainably, and prepared communally. The palette changed with the rhythms of the land—what bloomed, what burned, what flowed. Colour, like everything else, was cyclical, impermanent, and sacred.

Tree of life in Gond by Manoj Tekam

Colour as Cosmology: Symbolism in the Gond Palette

To understand colour in Gond art, one must understand that it is inseparable from belief. The Gond worldview sees no hard division between the natural and supernatural, between visible forms and invisible forces. Every element in their paintings—whether it is a crow perched on a tree, a snake weaving through roots, or a deity with wild hair—is embedded in a matrix of meaning. Colour, then, is not just a tool for visual differentiation—it is a spiritual signpost.

Red, used often in deities, tigers, or spiritual guardians, embodies vitality, strength, and ancestral energy. It is associated with rites of passage, with blood and earth, with both danger and divine protection. Yellow conjures light, joy, and fertility. It is the colour of turmeric, used in every sacred ritual from birth to death. Green, abundant in nature and central to Gond life, signals harmony, agriculture, and sustenance. It is the colour of life-giving trees and medicinal herbs. Black, far from being a negative force, is imbued with mystery, power, and protective energy. It marks boundaries between realms—night and day, spirit and form. White represents purity, calm, and conclusion. It is used in funerary contexts and to depict sacred closure. Blue, when it appears, evokes transcendence—the vast sky, cosmic flow, and the presence of divine beings beyond the forest.

Importantly, these colours are not fixed—they are fluid, contextual, and often intentionally layered. A deer painted in red and dotted with black is not just an animal, but a symbol of survival, alertness, and sacred kinship. A tree outlined in white and filled with yellow may represent both fruitfulness and spiritual offering. The Gond artist does not paint what is seen; they paint what is understood—what is felt, inherited, and remembered.

Tree and Deer in Gond by Manoj Tekam

Patterned Vision: How Colour Moves

What makes Gond painting instantly recognizable is its visual rhythm. Artists begin with a bold black outline—sometimes of an animal, sometimes of a tree, sometimes of a composite figure part-myth, part-memory. What follows is a meticulous, meditative process of filling in that outline with detailed patterns: dots, fish-scale curves, waves, lines, seed-shapes. These infills are not merely decorative. They mimic the textures of feathers, bark, fur, and leaves, yes—but they also create motion, a pulsing vitality that animates even the most static figure.

Colour is used not in blocks, but in harmony with these patterns. A single feather may shift from green to yellow through a series of fine dashes. A snake may ripple in blue dots that transition to red as it curves. The technique invites the eye to travel, to follow rhythm, to read the painting as one would read a story—line by line, pattern by pattern. It’s not surprising that many Gond artists say they “hear” the painting before they paint it.

The result is a visual symphony—still yet moving, flat yet dimensional, silent yet speaking. Colour, in this schema, is not an afterthought. It is voice, breath, and body all at once.

Lord Krishna with cow in Gond by Manoj Tekam

New Mediums, Ancient Messages: Gond Painting Today

In the 1980s, the Gond art tradition experienced a dramatic shift. Jangarh Singh Shyam, a young artist from the Pardhan sub-group of Gonds, was discovered by artist Jagdish Swaminathan and brought to Bhopal. Jangarh began painting on paper, using acrylics, and reimagining the art of his community for contemporary spaces. What emerged was the Jangarh Kalam—a style that respected Gond tradition while transforming it into a form accessible to national and global audiences.

Since then, many artists have followed—Bhajju Shyam, Durga Bai Vyam, Venkat Raman Singh Shyam among them—each with their own innovations and approaches. Acrylic paints replaced natural pigments for durability and access. Canvases and paper replaced walls. Themes expanded: airplanes, cities, and even the London underground appeared in Bhajju Shyam’s The London Jungle Book—a cross-cultural Gond visual diary.

And yet, the symbolic role of colour has not been lost. Even as metallics and fluorescents appear on canvas, the traditional meanings remain embedded. The tigers are still red. The trees still green. The stories still sacred. Many artists today navigate a space between preservation and experimentation—carrying forward the ancestral palette while allowing it to evolve.

Conclusion: Listening to Colour

Gond painting is not static heritage—it is a living, breathing forest of signs. To look at it is not simply to admire design or folklore, but to witness a way of seeing that is deeply rooted in relationship—with land, with god, with story, with self. The colours in a Gond painting are not passive—they speak. They invoke protection, summon joy, recall ancestors, and mark sacred time. They invite the viewer not just to see, but to listen—to hear the rustle of leaves, the chant of ritual, the echo of footfalls along forest trails.

In a time when synthetic dyes flood markets and digital filters flood screens, Gond painting reminds us that colour can be wild, intentional, and wise. That every hue has a history. That art can be both prayer and protest, decoration and documentation.

To observe a Gond painting, then, is to witness more than art. It is to hear the forest speak—in colour, in rhythm, in memory.