Bengal Patachitra is painting done on paper or fabric, and is manifested by rich colourful application, creative motifs and designs, and portrayal of simple themes, mostly mythological in depiction. Patachitra style of painting is one of the oldest and most popular art forms.
The name Patachitra has evolved from the Sanskrit words patta, meaning canvas, and chitra, meaning picture. The traditions of Patachitra paintings are more than thousand years old. Bengal Patachitra is practiced mainly in village Naya of district Paschim Medinipur under the block of Pingla.
The Patachitra was painted both for religious and entertainment purposes. Patachitras are painted narrative scrolls executed by a class of itinerant singing scroll painters variously known as Patuas, Chitrakars, Patikars or Patidars. These paintings are characterised by religious, social motifs and images painted on cloth. Their art appealed to everyone and could be understood by even a child.
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Handmade paper, coarse cotton fabric or tussar silk were traditionally used as canvas for Patachitra paintings. The paper scrolls generally have a stick on both ends used for unrolling. Apart from paper and cloth, sometimes palm- leaf manuscripts were made to paint the scrolls.
Five basic pigments – White (Sankha), Yellow (Hingula), Black (Kala), Brown (Khayeri), Indigo (Neela) and their combinations are used for colouring. The materials used in the paint are from vegetable, earth, and mineral sources. The subject matter of the patachitras includes religious, mythological, and folk themes. Krishna leela and Lord Jagannath are important motifs.
The size of a ‘Pata’ generally varies from one to one and half feet in width and three to twenty five feet in length. The ‘Pata’ are generally of two types. The ‘Jarano’ or ‘Gutano’ pata are scrolls depicting a story serially in picture frames. The ‘chauka pata’ is smaller in size and square in dimension. The chauka canvas is used for painting one particular deity or a mythical or social subject.
There are various lengths and durations of pata: those with 10 to 15 rectangular panels are known as latai pata, those of 6 to 8 oblong panels are the Arelatai pata and there are also smaller square chaukhosh pata.
Some of the few features of Bengal Patachitra are big eyes of the characteris, no eyelashes, no nails and mouths are closes. Use of borders on all four sides between the divisions of panel. The figures of the Patachitra looks like the classical Egyptian or Messopotemian style. Most figures depicted with frontal chest, profile head and limbs. No strict human proportions are there that means the size of the figure and limbs varies in respect of the space available for the Patachitra.
Artists uses different colour in respect of the characters and suitable rendition of the themes so that it can be catchy and easily understandable to all kinds of peoples. Except borders organic shapes are painted in Patachitra. The paintings are two dimensional without shadings.
There are two types of Pata- religious and secular. Religious pata encompass the story of Hindu epics like, Purana, Ramayana, Mahabharata narrating stories of Hindu gods and goddesses like, Krishna, Chaitanya, Kali, Shiva and the indigenous Bengali folklore of Manasha and Chandi, Behula and Lakshinder being the most popular.
Secular pata depicts important news events, scandals accidents etc such as rural elections, the rationing system, family planning, evils of the dowry system etc. Every Patachitra has a song related to it, which the artists sing while unfurling the Patachitra
GI Tag Registration Date : 28 March 2018
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Geographical Area : West Bengal
Special Cover Release Date : 29 November 2021
Cancellation : Bankura 722 101
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Sir, Nice Information . Nature colours using for Picture on Canvas.
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