Palm Leaf Painting

History
Palm leaf painting or engraving has been a very old East Indian Tribal art form prevalent in Orissa. Prior to discovery of paper, sacred texts were penned on palm leaves. The themes today are mythological, spiritual and erotic. It is believed that this form of art came into existence while temple construction but has developed over the years. The main theme of these paintings are stories from Epics.


Place of Origin
Palm leaf engraving was first introduced in the Cuttack district of Orissa. This traditional art form has been practiced by the Chitrakar families of Raghurajpur.

It is considered that the craft came forth during the construction of temples and reborn into ancestral craft for some families. The place Raghurajpura is famous for its creative person belonging to this craft. The long-familiar tales are engraved on palm leaf accepting all ethics of craft and mythology in mind.

In Orissa the Palm Leaf examples are majorly of two types,simple engravings or illustrations in pure line on palm leaf and engraving with color fillings.

Talapatrachitras
The palm leaf engravings also known as Talapatrachitras, consist of frozen one-dimensional drawing as representatives of manuscripts. In these engravings, colors are softened and act a very minor part. Where colors are at all enforced, they are just painted either to underline the inscriptions, or to fill up white space. In Orissa, manuscripts were scripted on palm leaves even during the Mughal period when the paper was freely available.

Examples from Historical Age
Palm leaf engravings have been one of the most former forms of traditional arts in Orissa. A group of artisans from Bhubaneswar and the near by areas have mastered this craft they had inherited from their ancesters. Some of the famous examples of Palm Leaf paintings from the history are :

• “Dasavatharam” - the ten incarnations of Lord Vishnu are engraved in that order on palm leaves.
  
  
• Another xeample of an eye catching palm leaf engraving explains the childhood “mischief” of Lord Krishna at Gokulam - stealing the butter, “cheating with Gopi, playing on flute etc. At that time, it took more than 25 days to complete this Gokulam palm leaf painting.
  
  
• Konark Temple of Puri and Lord Jagannath Temple, the world-renowned work of art, too have been tastefully engraved on the palm leaves.

Portrayed Incarnations
The 10 Incarnations depicted by the artist here on Palm leaf are:

• Sri Rama: The Ideal One
• Sri Krishna: The Complete One
• Buddha: The Enlightened One
• Matsya: Fish
• Kurma: Turtle
• Varaha: Boar
• Narasimha: Lion-man
• Vamana: Dwarf
• Parasurama: The Warrior Sage
• Kalki: The Future God

Description
Strips of palm leaf are collected from different trees & classified according to their similarity in visual aspect. These are then boiled, kept under wet clay, scrubbed on timber & dried for growing. The leaves are then cut into the desired size and sewed together with a thread. Illustrations are depicted using a pencil and then engraved by making slit with an iron style. After the illustration is graved, powdered coal is applied. The engraved portion thus gets satisfied and foregrounded. Vegetable dyes are sometimes applied to fill in the illustrations. This technique is used by the artists to depict as many scenes or sequences as possible to illustrate the mythological stories.

In Orissa, a beautiful folk art-form flourishes which involves engraving out figures with thin lines using an iron pen on strips of palm leaf. Different sections of the complete picture are finished up on a number of strips which are then sticthed together to complete the motive. The etching is scratched with lamp black to achieve a old-time effect. These small etchings mostly use mythological themes and are turned over and tied up with a string.