Warli Paintings

About Warli Paintings:

• It is a style of tribal art created by the tribal people from the North Sahyadri Range in Maharashtra.
• This art form can be traced back to 10th century AD but was first discovered and appreciated for its distinctive style only in the early 1970s.
• It was traditionally practised by women of the Warli tribe called Suvasinis, who decorated the Lagna Chowk or the wedding square.
• Theme:
  • Warli represents the daily routine of rural life, the relationship of the tribal people with nature, their gods, myths, traditions, customs, and festivities. 
  • These rudimentary wall paintings use a set of basic geometric shapes: a circle, a triangle, and a square.
  • The central motif in each ritual painting is the square, known as the "chauk" or "chaukat", mostly of two types known as Devchauk and Lagnachauk.
  • One of the central aspects depicted in many Warli paintings is the tarpa dance. The tarpa, a trumpet-like instrument, is played in turns by different village men. Men and women entwine their hands and move in a circle around the tarpa player. 
• Painting technique and materials
  • First design is selected.
  • Without tracing design, it is directly drawn on paper or cloth.
  • Cleverly modified bamboo sticks are used as paint brushes to create the paintings.
  • The colours and materials used for the paintings are derived from nature like brown and orange from henna, indigo from dye, red from bricks and white from thick rice paste.