Folk Art
India is home to a wide variety of cultures and traditions, each with their own distinct art forms. One of the most striking and popular forms of Indian art is folk art or tribal painting. These paintings are often colorful and intricate, depicting scenes from daily life or mythology like the Ramayana and the Mahabharat, interspersed with scenes from nature. Folk art or tribal art differs from the traditional art forms in India, which are much more recent in terms of history and are also not practiced by the tribal communities of India.
Folk art forms in India range from flora and fauna inspired Gond and Bhil paintings from Madhya Pradesh and Central India respectively to the geometric Warli paintings that describe the daily life of the tribes in Maharashtra. Each tribal art form has its own unique style and iconography.
Folk artists often use natural objects like rice flour, plant sap, leaves, coloured soil, charcoal and even cow dung as the sources for the color in their paintings and the surfaces range from handmade paper to cloth or canvas.
You may also like to explore our other collections:
Pichwai Paintings,
Mandala Paintings,
Warli Paintings,
Indian Village Paintings,
South Indian Art,
Kalighat Paintings