Living art traditions

Beyond the courts and dynasties, people in forests, deserts, mountains and villages have always made art, without any art school or formal schooling.

Scholars have called it many names: minor art, utility art, folk art, tribal art, people's art, ritual art, or craft. The line between the art of the people and craft is very thin.

It goes back to prehistoric cave paintings, and to the pottery, terracotta, bronze and ivory of the Indus period. Communities made pots, clothes, jewellery and votive sculptures (offerings to gods), and decorated their walls and floors.

Each tradition carries its own symbols, motifs, materials, colours and methods, handed down from generation to generation as indigenous knowledge.

Modern artists drew inspiration from these traditions. After Independence, the handicraft industry was revived and organised, and each State showed its arts in State emporia (government shops).