Madhubani painting is a folk art tradition of which state?

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.