Folk Paintings of India: Madhubani, Warli, Pattachitra

The correct answer is A, Bihar. Madhubani painting, also called Mithila painting, belongs to the Mithila region of north Bihar around Madhubani, Darbhanga and Sitamarhi, and is also practised in the Terai of Nepal. Women painted it on freshly plastered mud walls, above all in the kohbar ghar or nuptial chamber, and the style is known for flat figures and a field packed with lotus, fish, parrot and bamboo motifs. Option B is wrong because Odisha is the home of Pattachitra and of Saura wall painting. Option C is wrong because Maharashtra is the home of Warli painting, the white geometrical wall art of the Warli tribe. Option D is wrong because Jharkhand is known for Sohrai and Khovar painting, made at harvest and at marriages.

The correct answer is A, two triangles joined at their tips with a circle for the head. The Warli painter builds everything from three shapes: the circle for the sun and the moon, the triangle for the mountain and the pointed tree, and the square for the sacred enclosure. A body is an upper triangle and a lower triangle meeting at a point, with a small circle above and stick limbs, so a group of figures reads as a crowd in motion. Option B is wrong because a square body belongs to no part of the Warli vocabulary; the square is reserved for the ritual chauk. Option C is wrong because a plain circle with four lines describes a child drawing, not the triangle-based Warli figure. Option D is wrong because squares joined at a corner are not used for figures at all.

The correct answer is B, cloth and picture. Patta means cloth and chitra means picture, so Pattachitra is literally painting on cloth, made on a canvas of layers of cloth pasted together with tamarind seed paste and chalk and rubbed smooth with a stone. Option A is wrong because the temple is the subject of Odisha Pattachitra, with Jagannath, Balabhadra and Subhadra and the vesha of the deity, but it is not what the word means. Option C is wrong because palm leaf engraving is the sister craft called Talapattachitra, where tala stands for the palm; mixing the two is the commonest error in this question. Option D is wrong because wall painting is a different family altogether, to which Madhubani, Warli and Saura belong.

The correct answer is A, Raghurajpur. Raghurajpur, with the neighbouring Dandasahi, is the village of the Chitrakar families who paint Pattachitra, engrave palm leaf and make the painted masks and the Jagannath vesha panels; almost every house in it is a workshop. Option B is wrong because Pipli, also in Odisha, is famous for applique work in bright cloth, not for Pattachitra. Option C is wrong because Konark is the site of the thirteenth century Sun temple, a monument rather than a painters settlement. Option D is wrong because Nathdwara is in Rajasthan and is the home of Pichwai, the cloth hung behind the Shrinathji image; placing a Rajasthani centre in Odisha is the trap this question sets. Raghurajpur is also remembered as the village of the Odissi guru Kelucharan Mohapatra, a detail papers sometimes use to frame the same question.

The correct answer is D, Pichwai. Pichwai is not a Madhubani style at all; it is the painted cloth hung behind the image of Shrinathji at Nathdwara in Rajasthan, showing the seasons and the festivals of the deity. The recognised styles of Madhubani are Bharni, with the outline filled in solid colour, Kachni, built of fine hatching and line, Tantrik, which uses religious symbols and the forms of the goddess, Godna, drawn from tattoo patterns, and the Kohbar painting of the nuptial chamber. Options A, B and C are therefore wrong as answers because Bharni, Kachni and Godna are each genuine Madhubani styles, and a question of this shape is answered by spotting the one name that belongs to another region. Remember that the five Madhubani names are regional styles of one tradition, while Pichwai is a separate craft of a separate state.

The correct answer is B, Warli. Jivya Soma Mashe of the Warli country in Maharashtra was the painter who began to paint every day rather than only at weddings and rituals, which is how Warli art moved from the wedding wall to paper, canvas and exhibitions abroad; he received the Padma Shri. Option A is wrong because the modern Gond school of Madhya Pradesh was begun by Jangarh Singh Shyam, whose manner is called Jangarh Kalam. Option C is wrong because the names remembered in Madhubani are Sita Devi, Jagdamba Devi, Ganga Devi, Mahasundari Devi and Baua Devi. Option D is wrong because Kalamkari is the pen and block work of Srikalahasti and Machilipatnam in Andhra Pradesh, a craft of workshops rather than of one celebrated tribal painter.

The correct answer is A, Rajasthan. Phad is a long scroll painted on cloth in the Shahpura and Bhilwara area of Rajasthan, traditionally by the Joshi families, and it carries the epics of the folk deities Pabuji and Devnarayan; the Bhopa priest-singer unrolls it at night and sings the story before it. Option B is wrong because Gujarat is associated with Pithora, the ritual horse painting made by the Rathwa and Bhilala on a vow. Option C is wrong because Telangana has the Cheriyal scroll, also a narrative scroll but painted on a red ground for the story-telling castes. Option D is wrong because West Bengal has the Patua scroll, which is sung as it is unrolled, and the Kalighat painting of the colonial city.

The correct answer is A, Andhra Pradesh. Kalamkari means work of the pen, and its two centres lie in Andhra Pradesh: at Srikalahasti the design is drawn freehand with a bamboo pen and is temple-centred, while at Machilipatnam it is printed with carved wooden blocks for furnishing and dress. Vegetable dyes and repeated washing give the cloth its character. Option B is wrong because Tamil Nadu is known for the Thanjavur painting with its gold foil and gesso work. Option C is wrong because Karnataka has the Mysore painting and the Chittara wall drawing of the Deewaru community. Option D is wrong because Kerala is known for its temple murals in the five-colour scheme, a wall tradition and not a dyed cloth craft. The word itself is the clue: kalam is the pen, so the craft belongs where pen-drawn cloth is made, and Srikalahasti is in the Chittoor region of Andhra Pradesh.

The correct answer is A, Palaghata, the mother goddess. The chauk is the ritual square that the married women of the household paint for a wedding, and within it they place Palaghata, the goddess of fertility, so that the painting is itself a blessing on the marriage. Option B is wrong because Warli painting does not take up the gods of the epics and the puranas; Krishna belongs to Pattachitra, Pichwai and Madhubani. Option C is wrong because the tarpa player stands at the centre of the spiral of dancers, outside the chauk, and is a scene of celebration rather than the ritual centre. Option D is wrong because Jagannath is the deity of Odisha Pattachitra, where the triad and the vesha of the deity are the main subjects.

The correct answer is A, Jharkhand. Sohrai is the harvest and cattle festival painting and Khovar the marriage painting of the Hazaribagh belt of Jharkhand, made by women who brush on coloured earths or scratch through a top layer of white clay to reveal the dark layer beneath, a technique called sgraffito; the tradition carries a geographical indication tag. Option B is wrong because Assam is known for its manuscript painting on sanchi bark rather than for these wall paintings. Option C is wrong because Uttarakhand has Aipan, drawn in white rice paste on a red geru ground at the threshold and in the puja room. Option D is wrong because Chhattisgarh is better known for its Godna tattoo patterns and bell metal craft. Keep the pair in mind: Sohrai for the harvest and the cattle, Khovar for the marriage, both from the same belt of Jharkhand.

The correct answer is A, conch shell. The Pattachitra palette is made at home from natural matter: white is ground from the conch shell, black from the soot of a lamp, red from hingula, yellow from haritala and blue from indigo, and the gum of the wood apple binds them to the cloth, which is finally given a lacquer glaze. Option B is wrong because chalk is used with tamarind seed paste to prepare the surface of the canvas, not as the white pigment of the painting. Option C is wrong because lime and milk form no part of the traditional recipe. Option D is wrong because rice flour paste is the white of Warli wall painting, so the option is correct for another tradition and wrong for this one.

The correct answer is A, Jangarh Singh Shyam. Jangarh Singh Shyam of Patangarh in Madhya Pradesh took the Gond wall and floor decoration on to paper and canvas, filling his animals, trees and deities with dots and dashes, and the manner he created is called Jangarh Kalam after him; a generation of Gond painters followed it. Option B is wrong because Bhuri Bai is a celebrated Bhil painter, close to the same world but not the figure the school is named for. Option C is wrong because Sita Devi was a Madhubani painter of Mithila in Bihar. Option D is wrong because Ganga Devi was also a Madhubani painter, known for her kachni line work, and neither has any connection with the Gond tradition. A question on this topic often asks for the state as well, and the answer there is Madhya Pradesh, where the Gond are the largest tribal community.