Question

Historical facts about madhubani painting.
please answer

Answer 1

Folk art, culture and tradition are the attractions of rural tourism in India. Many foreign scholars and travelers take to off-the-beaten paths of villages in quest of the folk art forms of India every year. Indian Eagle connects them with Indian culture and heritage to promote rural tourism as its social responsibility. Like the previous article, “The Art and Craft of Raghurajpur in the State of Orissa”, our take on the Madhubani Painting of Bihar is an effort towards achieving the goal.

Connection with legends  

Madhubani Painting is a famous rural art of Madhubani, a village in the Mithila region of Bihar State, India. The origin of this art form is traced to the time of the Ramayana when Lord Ram was the King of Ayodhya in North India. If the legends are to be believed, a group of artists was commissioned to decorate the wedding venue with beautiful paintings on the occasion of the marriage of Ram and Sita by Janak, the King of Mithila.

From tradition to profession

Madhubani Painting has been an age-old tradition that women in the countryside perpetuated as a practice to decorate their huts from outside as well as inside on social and religious occasions. It has evolved from a folk culturetradition into a popular form of Indian art with the wheeling of time. In the bygone times, signs and symbols of sexual pleasure used to be painted on the walls of the rooms where newlywed couples spent the first night of marriage. With menfolk in the villages of Bihar having taken up Madhubani Painting as a profession, women have no longer the monopoly over it.

International contributions 

With art-loving tourists from around the world having taken interest in the rural tourism and heritage of India, Madhubani Painting has gone beyond the confines of Mithila to touch international heights. India owes the worldwide popularity of Madhubani Painting to Japan, Germany, France and America in particular. The Mithila Museum in Tokamachi, Japan, exhibits some 900 paintings of different styles from Madhubani. “The Women Painters of Mithila”, a book on Madhubani Painting by a French journalist was adapted into a film. The Master Craftsmen Association of Mithila, founded by an American in 1977, helps the artists of Madhubani with the sale of their creations through exhibitions