Warli

Warli is the name of the tribe which resides in the Thane district in Maharashtra on the northern outskirts of Mumbai and extends up to the Gujarat border. The origin of the Warli is unknown but many scholars and folklorists believe that it can be traced back as early as the tenth century AD. Warli art was rediscovered in the early seventies, and became popular for its unique simplicity and fervour for life. Usually Warli paintings are done during the marriage ceremony and are termed Lagnace Citra meaning marriage paintings. The painting is sacred and without it the marriage cannot take place. The figures and traditional motives are repetitive and highly symbolic, communicating the Warli life style and passion for nature. Triangular humans and animals with stick-like hands and legs, geometrical designs with rows of dots and dashes are also drawn on the mud walls of the huts of Warli.

In Warli painting it is rare to see a straight line, instead a series of dots and dashes are used. The artwork depicts a variety of interactions between humans, animals and nature, and common subjects are wedding scenes, various animals, birds, trees, men, women, children, descriptive harvest scenes, groups of men dancing around a person playing the music, dancing peacocks, and many more. One of the famous Warli paintings is the marriage chowkatt - a painting made at the time of marriage. Women called savasini (married women) paint a chauk or a square on the walls of their kitchen.

The Warli do not narrate mythology or any great epic, they simply daub on a mud, charcoal and cow dung based surface with rice paste for the colour white, the loose rhythmic movement that each work suggests adds life to the paintings.

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