Theme: Art and Craft
States and Union territories covered: 10
India is the land of arts and crafts. Almost every state has its own traditional form of art that includes embroideries, paintings, carvings, and sarees. Fascinated by Indian art and craft, we decided to explore them. So we started our journey from Jalpaiguri and we went to M.G. market, in this market we saw famous ‘Thankas’ painting of Sikkim usually made on cotton canvas with a frame of silk. Image of gods and goddesses are being curved through these paintings. There were copper statues, bronze statues, silver jewellery and Sikkimese dress material. In Siliguri, we saw many types of art from like stone painting, grass embroidery, portraits on glass, art by vex and painted pots. The Assam state museum has a good collection of many things like statues made of stones, woodcraft, paintings, coins, weapons, Indian Museum Kolkata has stone carving, skeleton of animals, Bangal painting, million-year-old fossils, textiles, some biographical scene and many more. The Government Museum, Madras, covers a variety of artefacts and objects that come under diverse fields, such as sculptures, palm-leaf manuscripts and Amravati paintings. Also included are the largest collection of Roman antiquities outside Europe and rare works of artists like Raja Ravi Varma. By exploring Rameshwaram and Kanyakumari, we learnt about the science of image-making, we learnt about casting and the types of casting. Yes! Going to a museum is always informative and worthy of the time spent too. Well-known arts of Kerala include Kathakali, Bharata Natyam and its articulate craftsmanship, which is an intimate part of her tradition. Handicraft items include carvings in wood like sandalwood, metal jewelry, granite statues, coconut shell.
The paintings of Rajasthan reflect the love for colorful expression much more than any other form of art. The powerful lines and dazzling colors of these paintings provide an effective contrast with their vigor and strength in expression, and characterization, so typical of Rajasthani life. After exploring all these, we ended our explorer journey: A journey of experience, knowledge, teamwork, compromises and art and craft.
