BHOPAL: Pattachitra, Krishna Janma Katha is the fourth ‘Exhibit of the Week’ of the month on the official website and social media pages of Indira Gandhi Rashtriya Manav Sangrahalaya (IGRMS), Bhopal.
The exhibition, which began on Monday, is part of the latest and popular online series of the museum. The height and width of the exhibit, collected from the Chitrakar community of Puri, Odisha in 1998 are 192 cm and 55cm.
Praveen Kumar Mishra, Director, IGRMS says the palm leaf painting ‘Pattachitra’ resembles the old murals of the religious center of Puri, Odisha. The best works of Pattachitra are found in and around Puri, especially in the village of Raghurajpur.
Pattachitra- Stitched palm leaves carved with fine black thread | Picasa
Pattachitra on palm leaf locally called Talapatra Chitra is one of the most famous indigenous and sacred art forms. Palm leaves were earlier used as writing material for manuscripts. For preparing pattachitra, palm leaves are stitched together in zigzag folds with threads using needles.
On the brittle surface of the leaf beautiful drawings are etched carefully with a sharp-pointed iron tool. The color is spread or rubbed all over the leaves with the help of a piece of cotton cloth and then cleaned and wiped with another cloth giving fine black color to the carved lines leaving the rest of the surface clean.
The subjects from great epics like Ramayana, Mahabharata and Krishna Leela are mostly chosen for the illustrations. The pattachitra shown here is rarest of its kind due to minute designs depicting the birth and life of lord Krishna, Mishra says.
