Art – The India Craft Project

Eternal Promises of the Gadiya Lohar Community

The sun peeking through the Banyan tree is showering rays of golden glitters. For Ila, one of the members of the Gadiya Lohar community, the day started much earlier.

The ‘Sunehra Taar’ in an Adda

Sitting on his grand Durbar, having a puff out of his regal Hookah, there was an evident reason that Firoz Shah Tughlaq mentioned a word-of-oblivion ‘Zardozi’ in his autobiography, ‘Futuhat-i-Firozshahi’

Ardhanarishwara: How Indian Art has Shaped its Legacy

Ardhanarishwara is one of the most significant symbols that has been signifying gender fluidity since times immemorial. The oldest images being a part of Kushana coins, dates back from 35-60 AD. Representing the union of duality, Ardhanarishwara or Ardhanareshwara depicts how masculine and feminine powers can unite to shape creative forces. The deity, however, in […]

Looking Between The ‘Lines’: Deciphering Gond

‘Mud is not just a medium but also a decoration in our aesthetics of art.Mud is used as decoration and also as a canvas’ -Durgabai Vyam, Gond artist It was a pleasant February morning in a village in Madhya Pradesh, when I first laid eyes on a patterned painting that had me hooked. I […]

History of Patna Kalam

In the 18th century when India was ruled by the three major schools of art i.e; Mughal, Anglo-Indian and Pahari, a lesser known but world’s first independent school of painting, “Patna Kalam” wooed the connoisseurs with its minimal yet bold approach towards it subject and style. Almost 200 years old now, Patna school of painting […]

Sikki Craft from Bihar

Driving through the unlevelled dusty route, our auto stopped at a point with no road to go ahead and coincidentally, THAT was the village we were looking for! Opening the tin doors of a house, we climbed up to the room upstairs and standing on a verandah overlooking the whole settlement of houses was Nazda […]

Yakshagana | The Song of The Celestial Beings

As children, we’re all fascinated by stories that took us away from our everyday lives, into completely different worlds and as we grow up we tend to move away from this world, preoccupied by our modern day problems. I ,on the other hand, find myself moving towards this mystic world with stories of Gods, beautiful […]

Pashmina’s Past Imperfect, Present Tense: Threads of Uncertainty

As well as the small number of mythological subjects which are his best-known works today, he painted a wide range of religious subjects and also some portraits. He and his workshop were especially known for their Madonna and Childs, many in the round tondo shape.