========= CULTURE ======== India’s craft traditions are as varied as they are ancient. Kalamkari, the art of hand and block printing with vegetable dyes. Craft: Kalamkari Kalamkari is the art of hand painting and sometimes block printing on fabric with vegetable dyes. Kalamkari was traditionally used for making narrative scrolls and panels or for textile art pieces. Today, it is used for a range of products in home furnishings, apparel and accessories. “Kalamkari” literally means “to decorate with a pen,” a name given by the Mughals, who were great patrons of the craft in the Coromandel and Golconda areas. The 3000-year-old art form evolved in two villages in Andhra Pradesh, Srikalahasti and Machalipatnam. Both centers have a distinct style of Kalamkari. Machalipatnam was influenced by the Muslim trade ties across Asia and hence, Kalamkari here catered more to Islamic aesthetics. The Srikalahasti style flourished under the patronage of the Srikalahasti temple – one of the five pancha bhuta temples. Thus, the art form here drew its inspiration exclusively from Hindu mythology. Kalamkari painting is an intricate and tedious process of resist-dyeing and hand printing. Kalamkari painting requires a lot of treatment before and after the painting is completed on the cotton fabric. First the cloth is whitened in a solution on cow or goat dung and dried in the sun for a couple of days. Contours are then drawn with a point in bamboo soaked in a mixture of fermented jaggery and water. The dyes follow after this. Dyes are obtained by extracting colors from parts of fruits, vegetables, roots and leaves, with mineral salts of iron, tin, copper and other metals serving as mordants (which helps bind the color to the fabric). Certain colors require the application of alum and wax as well. After applying each color, the Kalamkari is washed. Fabric may undergo up to 20 washings before completion. Various effects are obtained by using cow dung, seeds, plants and crushed flowers.
Posted on: Fri, 27 Sep 2013 07:20:04 +0000
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