Painting the Puranas By: Harsha Dehejia

Kalamkari paintings are used to depict mythology

Kalamkari or pen work refers to textiles that are printed or painted using a particular technique. Painted textiles have been recovered from the Indus Valley Civilisation. It is possible that the art of Kalamkari may have started with itinerant storytellers who would go from village to village telling stories and recounting valorous deeds. They would do this with a scroll of hand-painted images created with vegetable dyes. 

Modern Kalamkari can be traced back to 17th century Andhra Pradesh. Kalamkari, like most other Indian arts, owes its birth to temple rituals. Kalamkari textiles were used as aids to story telling within temple precincts or used as hangings in the temple to adorn the walls and make stories come alive for devotees. 

While the motifs of Kalamkari are drawn from Hindu mythology, the art form owes a lot to Persian influences which came into this area when trade links were established between Safavid Persia and the Qutub Shahi dynasty in Golconda. Chinese and Turkish influences were also seen in the motifs of the Kalamkari.

Narrative Scrolls
The two present-day centres of Kalamkari are Masulipatnam and Shrikalahasti. Kalamkari textiles were used to decorate temples and palaces as well for narrative scrolls, but over the years and more so recently, they have been used for household purposes like furnishings such as bedcovers. During the Raj, these bedcovers, called palangposh or palampore, were so popular in Europe that they threatened cotton fabrics made in England and were even banned for export. 

The procedure for producing a Kalamkari starts with preparing the cloth, which is first bleached then soaked in myrobalan solution mixed with fresh buffalo milk. The outlines are then drawn in red and black. The cloth is then washed in running water before sunrise, then starched and waxed. 

The kalam or pen is made of a bamboo stick at the end of which a thick pad of human hair is attached and figures are drawn with this pen or a wooden block. Red, blue, yellow and green are the main colours used. They are extracted from vegetable sources.

Popular Themes
Kalamkari artists of yore worked with the techniques used by mural painters. The usual themes were taken from the Puranas as well as from the Mahabharata and Ramayana. They were particularly adept in making and applying indigo. The Deccan is one of the few places in India which still uses the traditional method of extracting the blue colour from the indigo plant. 

The Kalamkars are able to produce two dimensional figures that equal temple sculptures and murals. Kalamkari fabrics cover the gamut of Puranic themes but Radha-Krishna, in a variety of lilas and kridas, remains one of the most popular representations and finds a place on walls of homes and havelis alike, even today. Kalamkari is an important part of the aesthetic repository of the textile arts of India.