Document Type
Article
Source Publication
India's Mithila Painting
Link to Published Version
https://uwapress.uw.edu/book/9780295753225/indias-mithila-painting/
Publication Date
4-2025
Editor
Paula Richman and David L. Szanton
Publisher
University of Washington Press
City
Seattle
Series
Global South Asia
ISBN
9780295753225
Department
Women's & Gender Studies
Second Department
Sociology & Anthropology
Description
Mithila Art has helped illuminate various aspects of the relationship between gendered Maithil social roles and Maithil women’s narratives in connection with a feminist participatory action research project conducted primarily in 2016-2017 in and around the northern Bihari town of Madhubani. While participatory action research philosophically and methodologically attends to process as much as product, Mithila Art played a role in the process and product of making a documentary film and in our capacity to understand and communicate with varied audiences about shifting Maithil gender norms. The research and filmic project provided insight into the complex relationship among the stories that women tell, rituals in which they engage, and the paintings they paint.
Recommended Citation
Davis, Coralynn V., "Painting Stories and Filming Change" (2025). Faculty Contributions to Books. 334.
https://digitalcommons.bucknell.edu/fac_books/334
Included in
Asian Studies Commons, Civic and Community Engagement Commons, Community-Based Research Commons, Development Studies Commons, Digital Humanities Commons, Family, Life Course, and Society Commons, Film Production Commons, Folklore Commons, Gender and Sexuality Commons, Hindu Studies Commons, Inequality and Stratification Commons, Modern Languages Commons, Painting Commons, Politics and Social Change Commons, Social and Cultural Anthropology Commons, Social Justice Commons, Sociology of Culture Commons, Sociology of Religion Commons, South and Southeast Asian Languages and Societies Commons, Visual Studies Commons, Women's Studies Commons
Publisher Statement
A woman's art form transforms from home to high art
Since at least the fifteenth century, Hindu women in the Mithila region of northern India have been painting images of deities, flora and fauna symbolizing fertility and prosperity, and floor designs that sacralize sites for ritual within their homes. Their artwork remained ephemeral since its plant-based colors faded over time. In response to an extended drought that led to widespread crop failure in the 1960s, the Indian government's All India Handicraft Board provided high-quality paper to the women of Mithila to test the income-generating possibilities of transferring wall and floor artwork to a new medium. The unique Mithila aesthetic, novel compositions, and precise linework won enthusiastic buyers in New Delhi and abroad. The small number of women painters expanded across the ranks of the social hierarchy and even included a few men. They developed individual styles and depicted novel subjects such as village history, their own life stories, the tsunami in Sri Lanka, social justice, protecting trees, and changing social norms.
Major international museums now house Mithila collections, and individuals around the world own paintings. This volume, the first to present an up-to-date analysis of the history and practitioners of Mithila painting, includes contributions from Mithila artists, anthropologists, art historians, historians of Indian religions and specialists of visual culture, gender studies, and translation studies.