Patachitra Paintings Style

Pattachitra refers to the folk painting of the state of Orissa, in the eastern region of India. The painting is done on cloth which the artists prepare themselves by coating it with a mixture of chalk and and gum made from tamarind seeds to give the surface a kind of a leathery finish on which the artists paint with earth and stone colors.

'Patta' in Sanskrit means 'Vastra' or 'clothings'. Some think it to be paintings done on 'Pata' or wood. Nevertheless, these paintings are also done on 'Pata' or wooden covers of palm-leaf manuscripts.

The tradition of Pattachitra is closely linked with the worship of Lord Jagannath and claims a distinct place of its own because of its exquisite workmanship. Apart from the fragmentary evidence of paintings on the caves of Khandagiri and Udayagiri and Sitabhinji murals of the Sixth century A.D., the earliest indigenous paintings from Orissa are the Pattachitra done by the Chitrakars (the painters are called Chitrakars). They do not belong to any particular place but the district of Puri has the highest concentration of Chitrakars.


The theme of Orissan painting centres round the Vaishnava cult. And for these, Jagannath, the main manifestation of Vishnu in the great temple of Puri in Orissa, is the major source of inspiration. The subject matter of Patta Chitra is mostly mythological, religious stories and folk lore. Themes are chiefly on Lord Jagannath and Radha-Krishna, though we also find a few Ramayana and Mahabharata themes in them. The individual paintings of gods and goddesses, different "Vesas" of Jagannath, Balabhadra and Subhadra, temple activities, the ten incarnations of Vishnu basing on the 'Gita Govinda' of Jayadev, Kama Kujara Naba Gunjara are also painted. High praise is given by art critics to Patta Chitra for their strange and fantastic pictorial conceptions, the pictorial and idiosyncratic conventions, the strange and summary system of line formulation and the deliberately wayward colour schemes."