Crafts
Madhubani painting
Madhubani, Bihar, India
Women in the Mithila region have painted walls and floors with intricate scenes and patterns for generations. Today the art is also made on paper and cloth.
Craft: Folk painting
Painted stories
Folk and tribal painting traditions where pictures carry myths, rituals and village life.
The places
Crafts
Warli art
Palghar, Maharashtra, India
The Warli people paint simple white shapes — circles, triangles and lines — on earthen walls to show dances, harvests and daily life.
Craft: Tribal wall painting
Crafts
Gond painting
Dindori and Mandla, Madhya Pradesh, India
Painters of the Gond community fill animals, trees and spirits with fine dots and lines. The style became widely known through the artist Jangarh Singh Shyam.
State: Madhya Pradesh
Crafts
Phad painting
Bhilwara, Rajasthan, India
Long painted cloth scrolls tell the stories of local heroes such as Pabuji. Bhopas, the singers who perform with them, tell the tale in front of the scroll.
State: Rajasthan
Crafts
Pattachitra
Raghurajpur, Odisha, India
Painters in the craft village of Raghurajpur paint mythological scenes in natural colours on treated cloth or palm leaf.
Craft: Cloth scroll painting
Crafts
Kalighat paintings
Kolkata, West Bengal, India
Bold-lined paintings created by artists around the Kalighat temple in the 19th century, with humour about city life.
State: West Bengal
Crafts
Thanjavur painting
Thanjavur, Tamil Nadu, India
Paintings of deities in rich colours with gold foil and inlaid stones, developed under the Maratha rulers of Thanjavur.
Craft: Gold-leaf devotional painting
Crafts
Aboriginal dot painting
Alice Springs, Northern Territory, Australia
The modern dot painting style began in 1971 at Papunya, west of Alice Springs, as artists began to use acrylic paint to depict Dreaming stories.
Craft: Acrylic dot painting
Crafts
Ayacucho retablos
Ayacucho, Peru
Small portable boxes with scenes made of painted figures, a tradition that began with religious altarpieces and now also shows village life.
Craft: Painted wooden altarpieces