India is a country with many castes, creeds, religions, and cultures. It is a place where different religious people live together peacefully and happily, despite different cultures.
It is surrounded with thousand years old temples and worship places which is still appreciated and visited. India is the home of many religions like Hinduism, Jainism, Buddhism, and Sikhism. They are distinguished from culture and ethics.
When it comes to religion, people describe or publicize their beliefs, faith, culture, and custom through art. There is an alluring connection between art and religion.
It shows drawing out about the culture they follow and what is their perception about things? What is the story behind the art? There are some stories hidden in the arts, which are described in the form of art.
Let us take the example of Pichwai Paintings. This is a type of painting that was introduced 400 years ago in India, Rajasthan, Udaipur, in the town called Nathdwara. It is art made in cloth and is beautifully painted and hanged as a curtain back to the idol of Srinathji.
What led to the origin of Pichwai Painting?
In the late 16th century, artists used to paint many arts in cloths and ply them in temples; this led to the origination of Pichwai Paintings. The main motive behind Pichwai Paintings is to unfold the story of Krishna.
The idol is a beautiful posture of Krishna with the right hand around the waist, and the left hand raised above like holding a mountain.
It was originally introduced in Govardhan temple in Mathura, Uttar Pradesh, but due to a sudden attack by the Mughals, the caretaker had to get away; during their travel, the idol got stuck in a place called Sihad on Banas River, which made the devotees accept it as a signal that the idol is willing to settle down here.
Therefore this gave birth to a town, Nathdwara. People of various professions wholeheartedly worked towards taking care of and developing the temple.
Paintings were made describing the story of Krishna. Then Nathdwara began to be well known for festivals such as Holi, Diwali, Janmashtami, Govardhan puja, and many more festivals connected to Lord Krishna.
To represent the different phases of Krishna, Pichwai Paintings became popular and were hung behind the idols.
This painting dangled on the temple wall and became so popular slowly that it led to being known as Nathdwara paintings. And it became so famous that every household had it as their wall painting. It also comes with other illustrations like trees, cows, peacocks, and floral designs, etc.
Now, it is advertised as a collector item by Anil Relia, who has been coming up with various miniature paintings. He has recently published two books on the art form and the artists: “Portraits of devotion” and “The Portal to Shrinathji”.
Researchers have found that the Pichwai Paintings have been compared with Pattachitra Art of Odisha, which was started as a symbol of faithfulness to Lord Jagannath of Puri.
What are the Initiatives taken today?
In this pandemic situation, it has become really difficult to entertain the physical presence of the public to advertise such paintings like Pichwai Paintings in the museum.
Many initiatives have been making rounds to keep and encourage such contemporary work and make the people and even youngsters know about such breathtaking and amazing skills.
Digitalization is an alternative for this where people can be aware, and there is a chance of increasing engagement among themselves and also with the culture and new creations.
An online program can be conducted so that the people and youth altogether can have a virtual visit to the museums for advertising those fine artwork.
Conclusion
India is one of the most beautiful cultures, so as the Pichwai Paintings introduced by them. There are many other arts like this which need to be introduced in the upcoming future. Let’s initiate interest and join hands to make our culture even more popular and great to be recognized in history.