Warli Art

The Warli culture portrays one of the best examples of man - environment interaction. Their indigenous practices are proof of how the tribals, though illiterate, had the mechanism to preserve the environment.

I am really fascinated by the Warli art used by the Warli tribe of Maharashtra to decorate their homes and make it standout with just terracotta and white against a lush green landscape. They depict everyday happenings that we so take it for granted very vividly with basic shapes and simple brush strokes.

The wall paintings use a very basic graphic vocabulary: a circle, a triangle and a square. The circle and triangle come from their observation of nature, the circle representing the sun and the moon, the triangle derived from mountains and pointed trees. Only the square seems to obey a different logic and seems to be a human invention, indicating a sacred enclosure or a piece of land. So the central motive in each ritual painting is the square, known as the "chauk" or "chaukat".

The walls are made of a mixture of branches, earth (lal mati or red earth that is indigenous to Maharashtra soil) and cow dung, making a terracotta background for the wall paintings. The use of only white for their paintings is very characteristic of the art. Thewhite pigment is a mixture of rice paste and water with gum as a unifying material. They use a bamboo stick chewed at the end to make it as supple as a paintbrush.

Jivya Soma Mashe (born 1934), an artist of the Maharashtra state in India, is accredited with popularising the Warli tribal art form and used it for commercial purposes thereby introducing a once very localized and obscure art to the world.

I am a maharshtrian and proud to present this art as my first blog.