Indian Heritage & Culture
Warli Art
- 09 Nov 2020
- 2 min read
Why in News
Artists in Hyderabad are using traditional Warli art (Maharashtra) form not just to beautify Hyderabad, but also to create awareness on important issues.
Key Points
- Warli is a traditional art form of Maharashtra.
- Its roots can be traced to as early as the 10th century A.D.
- These paintings are distinctive with their vivid contrast expressions.
- These paintings are mainly dominated by basic geometric shapes like circles, triangles and squares.
- These geometric shapes stand as a symbol of natural elements in our environment.
- For example, the circles represent the sun and moon, the triangles represent the mountains and the squares are considered as the central motifs of the painting.
- People and animals are represented by two inverted triangles joined together, where the upper triangle is the torso and the lower triangle is the pelvis.
- The central theme of the paintings are scenes portraying huntin, fishing, farming, festival and dances, trees and animals are used to surround the central theme.
- Warli art form is being used by many artists to beautify cities and spread awareness through wall paintings.
- It is also being used to beautify bags, bed sheets and many other items.
- Warli is the vivid expression of daily and social events of the Warli tribe of Maharashtra, used by them to embellish the walls of village houses.
Warli Tribe
- They are an indigenous tribe or Adivasis, living in the Mountainous as well as coastal areas of Maharashtra-Gujarat border and surrounding areas.
- They speak an unwritten Varli language which belongs to the southern zone of the Indo-Aryan languages.
