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A brief Discussion on Warli Art

Writer's picture: Saheli PalSaheli Pal

Updated: Dec 8, 2024


India, a land where art and culture intertwine seamlessly with the fabric of everyday life, offers a mesmerizing palette of artistic traditions that reflect its vast landscapes and diverse communities. Each art form practiced across this expansive nation holds a unique identity, a living legacy that narrates the stories of its people. One of them is Warli Art, which has gained a lot of popularity and draws the attention of many people in recent days.

These days, you might notice a certain geometric tribal art adorning the walls of chic cafés, public spaces, or even the garments we wear—this is Warli Art. Its simplicity and elegance have made it a favorite in contemporary fashion, with sarees, kurtis, and other attire proudly displaying these intricate designs. Yet, despite its prevalence, many remain unaware of the rich history and cultural significance behind this art form, often merely categorizing it as 'tribal art.' It's important to note that while Warli is indeed a tribal art, it is not the only one practiced in India. Numerous other tribal art forms exist across different regions of the country. Among them, Warli has become the most popular and is commonly used for decoration on everyday objects.

Let’s briefly discuss Warli Painting so that the next time you encounter this art form, you’ll have a basic understanding of its origins and development. The first question that might come to mind is what does the term Warli mean? It’s neither complicated nor carries a heavy meaning. The term ‘Warli’ comes from the name of the tribal people who practice this unique form of art. So, who are the Warli? The ‘Warli’ adivasi or tribes reside in a specific region of Maharashtra. Scholars have discovered that the Warlis maintain a tradition dating back to 2500 or 3000 BCE.


Warli Painting

Decoding the Symbols of Warli Art:

Warli paintings have various subjects or themes, which presents a picture of their daily life. This primitive tribal art is two dimensional with no perspective or proportion. Each painting has various elements giving a huge outlook. Symbols used in the paintings represent the whole world of Warlis. Most of them emphasize fertility, productivity in nature. These extremely rudimentary paintings use a very basic graphic vocabulary: a circle, a triangle and a square. The circle and a triangle come from their observation of nature; the circle representing the sun and the moon, the triangle derived from mountains and pointed trees.

Only the square seems to obey a different logic and seems to be a human invention, indicating a sacred enclosure or a piece of land. So the central motif in each ritual painting is the square, the Cauk or Caukat, inside, there is a Palaghat, the Mother Goddess, symbolizing fertility. Significantly male gods are unusual among the Warli and are frequently related to spirits which have taken human shape. The central motif in these ritual paintings is surrounded by scenes portraying huntings, fishing and farming, festivals and dances, trees and animals. Human and animal bodies are represented by two triangles joined at the tip.

The Warlis are simple in nature, they include life around them in their drawings like what they feel, see and believe in life. It obtains its motivation from the rituals and festivities of the tribe, with the main focus on the occasions like birth, death, and marriage. Their life is closely linked with nature so one of their themes also depicts the forms of nature i.e. sun and moon, rain, wind, lightning, and god of thunder. Warlis never do anything without significance. For example, they will not speak unless absolutely necessary because they believe that words can make things alive. Visually this is demonstrated in a striking contrast that the dark hut provides to the resplendent wedding painting.


Depiction of Circle of Life in Warli Painting

The world view of the Warlis is best represented by the circle which has neither an end nor a beginning. It is an expanding, encapsulating view of reality, a kin to the womb which is capable of endless births. Little wonder then, that they draw the circle at the time of birth, during marriage and while performing the death rites, for it denotes the very core of their existence. The whole wonder of life, marriage and death is symbolized by the cult of the mother and is given concrete expression in the form of rituals.

These paintings are different from any other folk paintings because there is no depiction of mythological figures and religious icons. Till now we discuss the very basics about the Warli Art Form. Now quickly, go into little details. To have a deeper understanding, we should know the ‘warli’ tribes because to understand the painting we must know about their practitioner.

The ‘Warli’ are one of the major and ancient tribes of India. They mainly belong from the Dahanu and the Talasari Taluka of Thane district of Maharashtra. The region lies in the Sahyadri Hills north of Western Ghats. Warlis are mainly cultivators, gatherers of forest produce and dominating livestock. They are completely dependent on nature. That’s why one of the major parts of the painting consists of worshiping Mother Nature. The historians and scholars believe that the tradition of Warli may be traced as early as the 10th century A.D and the art was first discovered in the early seventies. The art of Warlis at any rate seems to belong to the phase classified as Neolithic in the rock painting of Central India.

The Warlis have a deep reverence for their spirit and deities. Warli religion is based on awe and fear. They worship gods chiefly to avoid their wrath. They are well known to have a faith in Tiger God (Vaghai). They consider the Tiger a symbol of life and regeneration. As such they do not have well built temples, but have carved wooden statues of tigers with or without other components of nature. Their ritual of worshiping the tiger God is very much prevalent in their art practices. Since Warli tribals are agriculturists, Hariali Deva, the god of plants, also occupies a prominent place in the Warli pictograph. The holistic view of life is expressed through a number of many small daily practices. Warlis previously did not plough the land, as this would hurt Dharitri or mother Earth. The life support system of Warli is linked with that of the forest. The Warli is dependent on his forest for Anna, Arogya and Aasra (food, wellbeing and security).

Warli Adivasi making Warli Art on her wall

Warli's food habits and clothing patterns carry an inherent austerity. Their homes are windowless spacious simple structures of wood, bamboo, karvi reeds, earth and cow dung with roofs of straw and dried leaves. Inside the rooms are dark and empty except for a handful of possessions. Although they share their living spaces with their domestic animals like dogs, goats, hens and even cows, cleanliness is overtly apparent. Surprisingly there is no furniture and no storage containers like boxes, cupboards or trunks. The only food storage is the rice in the Kaanjiis. The economic condition of the Warli tribe is not much developed. Despite poor economic conditions they joyfully practiced their art on every occasion. Economic well-being never becomes an obstacle in the way of practicing their art.

Traditional Warli Painting by Artist Saheli Pal

That’s the discussion for today regarding the origin and development of Warli Art. In the next post we are going to discuss more about this Exotic Indian Folk Art.





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2 Comments


Guest
Sep 14, 2021

Informative writing. Well done.

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batahiya89
batahiya89
Sep 15, 2021
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Thank you for your comment.

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