--Roger von Oech
Most of
you who have been reading my explorative blog posts would have seen my recent
past post on Jaipur Blue pottery. In true explorative intent, that journey took
me to discovering Phad Paintings. Here I was meandering through the internet
learning and absorbing when I chance upon this form of painting called Phad
Paintings. I had never heard or seen Phad paintings before. “Not all who wander
are lost”, a well-fitting quote came to mind. Well! What a treat. I just had to
put my other projects aside and get straight down to attempting this. It was
absolutely a pleasure discovering this art form.
Though not
so well known, Phad paintings originated in 1629. Rajasthan’s Phad paintings
are unique ethnic paintings painted on long pieces of cloth called ‘Phad’. The
paintings are panoramic scroll paintings usually large, about 15-30 feet, done in
vibrant colors highlighting the deeds of heroes, deities and gods, and legends
and stories of erstwhile maharajas.
The Bhopas, the priest-singers traditionally carry the painted phads along with them and use these as mobile temples of the folk deities. The paintings depicting exploits of local deities
are often carried from place to place and are accompanied by traditional
singers, who narrate the theme depicted on the scrolls. Phad paintings bear the
task of representing a complex and extensive folk narrative which is achieved
through a very specific style of representation, filled with figures and pictorial
incidents, these paintings form a kind of dramatic backdrop to epic
storytelling. They are customarily opened or unrolled only after sundown, when
people gathered for an all-night performance.
These paintings are magnificent in
their minute detail work. The outlines are drawn in bold black and filled with
colors. The outlines of the figures are also first drawn in black and later
filled with colors. Every available inch is crowded with figures. A unique
feature is the two dimensional flat treatment of the figures and the stacked scene construction
of the paintings. The canvas is incongruously filled with figures and different scenes are depicted in separated blocks. The scale of the figure depends on the social status and
importance of the character they represent and the role they play in the story.
Another interesting feature is that the figures in the paintings do not face
the audience, rather they face each other.
The colors used are natural
colors extracted from vegetables, fruits, and flowers. A multi chromatic color
palette is a significant characteristic of phad paintings. For example: orange
symbolizes physical might and power of the hero, yellow to signify golden
ornaments, red for clothes on the characters, green for foliage, blue for
water, and general narrative is done in grey.
Most famous heroes depicted in
these folk style paintings and songs are Goga Chauhan, Prithviraj Chauhan, Amar
Singh Rathore, Papuji Ramdevji and Dev Narainji.
So here it is...My own hand drawn original Phad Painting!!
So here it is...My own hand drawn original Phad Painting!!
For my attempt of Phad paintings, though
mine would technically be called drawings, I tried to stay as true to the original Phad paintings as
possible and I did not take much creative liberty with this project. I did
practice drawing the figures several several times. The faces of the figures
are almost the same and made drawing a practiced repetition. I would have liked to have drawn the figures a little bigger especially in the larger canvas as it would have made drawing a little easier. But I was using an un-erasable pen and there was no going back. Nevertheless I managed to give the figures a lot of detail. I liked the
drawings without color too as it highlighted the details and intricacies of the
line drawings. But I love the colored look too. So I made another one…sort of
as an accompaniment to the big one. The large canvas is 12'' by 24" and the smaller one is 11' by 14". In the big one you see the princess bride with her
bridal procession and in the smaller one you see the king going to receive his
bride. To finish and tie-in both the canvases, I painted a yellow and red border as is customarily seen in Phad paintings.
Credits for my material:
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