Warli Art

Warli painting originated as a style of rustic art created by the tribal people from the north Sahyadri range in India, and is thought to date back to as early as the 10th century A.D. The art form as such only came to be recognised in the 1970s. The simple, pictorial language of Warli painting is matched by a raw, rustic technique, depicting mostly scenes portraying hunting, fishing, and farming, and trees and animals and other day-to-day activities . Festivals and dances are common scenes depicted in the ritual paintings. 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. These rudimentary wall paintings use a set of basic geometric shapes: a circle, a triangle, and a square. The circle represents the sun and the moon, while the triangle is derived from mountains and pointed trees. The Warli generally create these paintings on the inside walls of village huts, made of a mixture of branches, earth and red brick that offer a beautiful, red ochre background for the paintings. The Warli only paint with a white pigment made from a mixture of rice paste and water, with gum as a binder. A bamboo stick is chewed at the end to give it the texture of a paintbrush. Walls are painted only to mark special occasions such as weddings or harvests. Farming is the main way of life for the Warli and Warli culture predominantly centres around the concept of mother nature and elements of nature are often focal points depicted in Warli painting.