By Ines Keane
The first step is not a brush. It is a seed. Soak tamarind seeds in water for three days, grind them to a paste, and you have the glue that turns two layers of cotton into a painting surface. So says Sarmaya, a South Asian arts portal, and the other sources we read agree on the glue if not on much else.
What the word means
Wikipedia gives the name as Sanskrit: patta for cloth, chitra for picture. The craft is made in Odisha and in West Bengal. This piece covers the Odisha form only, which Wikipedia says has its own Geographical Indication, registered on 10 July 2008. Bengal’s patachitra has a separate one, registered on 28 March 2018.
Making the surface
Three sources describe the canvas, and they differ in small ways.
- Wikipedia: cotton cloth is coated with chalk mixed with gum from guar or tamarind seed, rubbed with two stones and dried.
- Gulf News, a newspaper feature on the village of Raghurajpur: two layers of cotton are bound with tamarind-seed gum, then given a white coat of powdered limestone and tamarind paste, dried and polished.
- Sarmaya: the same two layers, coated with soft clay or limestone powder, then polished with a rough stone and a smooth one until the surface is leathery.
We show all three. Chalk, limestone and clay are not the same thing, and we do not decide which is right.
Drawing and colour
Here the sources part again. Wikipedia says the outlines are drawn directly with a brush in light red or yellow, with no pencil or charcoal. Gulf News says the surface is sketched with charcoal or limestone, often from memory, and that borders and geometric motifs are often traced from stencils. Our reading: practice may vary between workshops. That is our inference and no source says it.
On pigments the sources agree more than they differ. Wikipedia says the painters make their own natural vegetable, earth and mineral colours, and that white comes from powdered, boiled and filtered conch shell. Gulf News lists conch-shell white, lamp-soot black, geru (red oxide) red, harital stone yellow and indigo blue, with green from leaves. Sarmaya names hingula for red and haritala for yellow, and says the shell powder is mixed with a gum called katiha. Wikipedia lists haritala for green and, in the same article, for yellow, so we leave that point open.
Brushes, says Wikipedia, are made from domestic animal hair tied to a bamboo stick. The last step it lists is a lacquer coat, applied with the painting held over a fire so the back is heated.
The look
Sarmaya describes the style: figures drawn frontally, with the face and legs in profile and the eyes shown frontally. Colour mostly outlines circular forms such as jewellery. Borders often hold smaller scenes of the same characters, and a border of two entwined snakes is common. Red is commonly the background. Wikipedia adds that there are no landscapes or perspective and the lines are bold and clean. It also lists a glossy lacquer finish among the features of genuine work, while saying it gives no formal authentication guide.
Our reading: those features are a useful checklist, but they describe the tradition and do not prove where a particular piece was made. That is our inference.
What it shows
Wikipedia says Odisha subjects include Jagannath, Radha-Krishna, Balabhadra and Subhadra, the ten incarnations of Vishnu, the Ramayana, the Mahabharata and folklore. Sarmaya says many paintings depict the Jagannath temple at Puri. We name the subjects and nothing more; the sources should be read for their own account of the stories.
Where it is made
Wikipedia lists Raghurajpur, Puri, Danda Sahi, Parlakhemundi, Chikiti, Digapahandi, Sonepur and Dharakote. It says the village of Raghurajpur is home to the best work. Sarmaya says historians consider the finest painters to come from Chitrakar Street in Parlakhemundi, in Ganjam district. Two sources, two answers on where the best work is made. We keep both.
Raghurajpur itself is described three ways.
- Wikipedia’s Raghurajpur article: in Puri district, about 14 km from Puri, on the southern bank of the Bhargabi river, with two streets and more than 120 houses.
- Gulf News: in Puri district, about 50 km from Bhubaneswar, with 145 families in two rows of houses and more than 500 family members working in a craft.
- Both agree that INTACH, a heritage trust, selected the village in 2000. Wikipedia calls it Odisha’s first heritage crafts village, after a documentation project.
Gulf News says each house has a front room used as studio and exhibition space, and that outer walls carry painted murals. Besides cloth paintings, the village makes palm-leaf engravings, tussar silk paintings, stone and wood carvings, papier-mâché toys and masks.
How old is it
The sources do not agree. Gulf News says scholars link the early form to murals in the Khandagiri and Udayagiri caves and in Ganjam district, dating to the 2nd century BCE. Gulf News and Sarmaya tie the modern form to the 12th century CE. We show the dates and do not reconcile them.
Dates in order
- 2nd century BCE: cave murals that scholars link to early forms, according to Gulf News.
- 12th century CE: the modern form develops, according to Gulf News and Sarmaya.
- 2000: INTACH chooses Raghurajpur as a heritage village, according to Wikipedia and Gulf News.
- 10 July 2008: Odisha Pattachitra registered as a Geographical Indication, according to Wikipedia.
Side by side
The glue is tamarind seed in all three accounts. The coating is chalk, limestone or clay depending on the source. The village has more than 120 houses or 145 families, depending on the count and what is being counted. Our reading: these may be different measures of the same place.
What kind of sources these are
Wikipedia, which anyone can edit; a newspaper’s feature; and an arts portal. We did not reach the Crafts Council of India, whose site blocked our reader, nor the state tourism board. We give no prices.
Questions a buyer would ask
Is the white pigment shell or a factory colour? Is the surface cloth or paper? Is there a lacquer finish? Gulf News notes that mass production uses chemical dyes and paints in place of natural colours, so the pigment question is worth asking.
What we left out
A temple ritual described by Sarmaya, because it is a matter of belief; the gender roles of old workshops; and claims about how long one painting takes beyond the one source’s “a few months”.
Quick answers
What is pattachitra made on? Wikipedia says cotton cloth coated with a chalk and gum mix. Gulf News says two cotton layers bound with tamarind-seed gum and coated with limestone paste.
What gives pattachitra its white? Wikipedia, Gulf News and Sarmaya all say powdered conch shell, which Sarmaya says is mixed with katiha gum.
Does Odisha pattachitra have a GI tag? According to Wikipedia, it was registered on 10 July 2008.
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