Warli Art: Embracing Global Reach
Sudhakar Vitthal Chavan’s Doctoral Thesis
Prof Sudhakar Vitthal Chavan, a renowned art teacher and painter of Pune, wielded a brush, a pencil and charcoal and achieved scores of accolades until he was 77. Unlike most of his fellow artistes, however, he achieved something more: A doctorate at Savitribai Phule Pune University’s Art and Visual Art faculty at its Lalit Kala Kendra. He faced corona 19 during the period. He met with a spinal cord injury that made him use a walker when he worked for his doctoral study on a topic “ Impact of 21st Century on Warli Art ” of Maharashtra’s Adivasis in the Sahyadri ranges. His ex-banker wife Vasudha was a cancer patient during the period and had managed to recover when he appeared for the viva voce on 10 th June, 2022.
As an art teacher and artist, Prof Chavan had studied tribal arts of other states besides Warli paintings. Thus he had studied and taught to his students Gond and Bhil tribal art of Madhya Pradesh, Muria of Chhattisgarh, Saura of Odisha, and Rathua of Gujarat, He participated in exhibitions, workshops, and training programmes of various state governments and the central government to learn tribal art forms of every region of the country. His passion to learn history and tribal art forms with historical and Indological perspectives lead Prof Chavan to take up the doctoral study under the guidance of a veteran in the field, Principal Prof Dr D R Bankar.
Art Founder Jiwa Mashye
The Warli Art practiced by the tribals in a tiny pocket of Thane district of Maharashtra was little known before the 1970s. Thanks to Jiwa Mashye, his son Balu and a small group of Warli men and women of Palghar-Dahanu tehsils, the Warli art gradually became known to art lovers in Mumbai and outside the region. By 1976, Jiwa’s fame travelled from Mumbai’s Jahangir Art Gallery and beyond India, Dr Chavan’s study has recorded.
The men and women artists from Dahanu, Talasari, Jawhar, Palghar, Mokhada, and Vikramgad of Palghar district began offering paintings drawn on walls of their mud houses, pasted with cow-dung layer and natural colours prepared from earth and leaves . They use a set of basic shapes: a circle, a triangle, and a square. These shapes are symbolic of different elements of nature. The artists use square, known as the "chauk" or "chaukat", known as Devchauk and Lagnachauk. Inside a Devchauk is usually a depiction of palaghat, the mother goddess, symbolizing fraternity. The paintings are celebration of festivals, weddings, and the harvests. Of late when the tribals realised the commercial value of their paintings, the artists have begun creating art work using material as canvass and paper.
Initial Warli Art Work
Initial arts of the Warli artists included scenes depicting nature, sun, moon, stars, wild animals, fishing, farming, trees, gods, spirits, and their dances, festivals and dances are common scenes depicted in the ritual paintings. Other Warli paintings covered day-today activities of the village people. Similarly, the recurring theme of the paintings include their traditional tarpa dance using a trumpet-like musical instrument.
Dr Chavan’s data indicate that the tribal’s art was exposed to art lovers across the continents which gradually brought revenue from buyers in India and abroad. Earlier, the men and women had to struggle as farm labours, workers in factories in nearby Mumbai industry, and also as domestic servants. Thanks to art exhibitions and sponsorship to their artwork by corporate houses, noprofit organizations, and the support from the government agencies to the tribal communities the Warlis were exposed to new sources of revenues. This in turn helped them learn new ideas, concepts, and techniques for drawings and paintings.
Exposure to International Scene
Dr Chavan reports in his doctoral thesis that the Warli men and women now depict events, and happenings, which these artists come across as they travel as artistes and tourists in places in USA, Europe and Asia. Dr Chavan thus records that the Warli artists have drawn paintings of Eiffel tower, underground metro, suburban trains, mobile towers, sky scrapers, TV, computers, offices in metropolitan centres, three wheeler/four wheelers, buses, boats, political rallies, smoke-emitting chimneys of the factories, railway stations, and so on.
Dr Chavan has recorded that the tribals have familiarized themselves with mass media, radio, the Internet, and out-of-home media. Some of them have learnt to use social media also. Dr Chavan explains that the Warli’s concept of religion is not broad and well-defined as compared to those of other Indian communities. However, their art expresses the rage and beauty of nature in a unique way that deals with wildlife, birds, fish, and human expressions. Their expressions are born out of their curiosity, fear, and relationship with nature. Until 1970s, the varli art was limited to express the customs of the tribe, their lifestyle, concepts of their gods, their experiences of the nature. The origin of the Warli art deals with their spontaneity, creativity , symbolism, and narratives of expressions.
“X ray Picture”
Now, the Warli art and its heritage are gradually known the world over. The new art forms include sculptures, ornaments, utensils, idols carved in metals, stone, and earth. Each of these are originally made as simple utilities but they are appreciated as art forms that have become source of revenue for the members of the Warli community. Dr Chavan’s data suggests that the Warli art resembles the cave paintings of Bhim Betka in Madhya Pradesh, Central India, belonging to the Paleolithic and Mesolithic periods. The Warli artists have evolved an art form for depiction of human beings, animals, birds, trees, and nature. The ends of two triangles are joined to show the figures of their objects to be depicted.
The artists do not always draw a picture as they see the object, but as they know the object exist. For example, the artist will draw a picture of articles in a bag, basket, inside a house, or in a train/bus. It will not be limited to how they see these articles. Such a drawing is now known as “X ray Picture,” explains Dr Chavan.
The Medium and the technique of Warli Paintaing
A Warli paiting is a chain of scenes of several situations. It is a coherent thought process of several incidents such as, for example, weddings and related rituals, farming, folklore, folk song, part of human life, stories of gods and spirits. Such a painting is not any more made only for religious purposes. It is not any more meant any more only for the Warli community. It is because this art now has a commercial purpose for business. Scores of individuals, organizations, establishments, not-for-profit centres, or self-help groups, government, non-government organisations, and corporate houses are among those involved in the art.
There is a demand for the tribal art from different types of customers. This meant that there is a growing demand for the different subjects and topics of the artwork. The artists have begun expressing themselves about the events and situations happening around them.
Impact of globalisation on Warli Art
Thanks to television, the internet, and newspapers, news agencies, magazines, radio, and social media, the artists are exposed to global current affairs . The artists like Jivya Soma Mashe, his sons, Sadashiv, and Balu, and grand sons Pravin, and Vijay, Mashe, Rajesh Wagad, Anil Wankad, Balu Dhumaada, Shantaram Gorkhana, Amit Dombare, and Ganesh Wangad, Dhumada, and women artists such as Manki Bai and Meenakshi Waida have begun expressing themselves. The late Mr Jiyaa Soma Mashe was decorated with a civilian honour, Padmashri, and the others have also won recognition as leading artists of India, Dr Chavan’s thesis has acknowledged the reputation of the Warli artists and also their global reach.
Prof Sudhakar Vitthal Chavan
sudhakarvithal@gmail.com
Prof Dr Kiran Thakur
drkiranthakur@gmail.com
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