Kalamkari painting and printing

Kalamkari is an exquisite
ancient craft of painted and printed fabrics. It derives its name from Kalam meaning Pen, and Kari means work, literally Pen-work. It is a hand painting as well as block printing with vegetable dyes. SRIKALAHASTI ,near the temple town of Tirupati, is an ancient centre. The themes drawn from rich mythology of Hinduism. They throb with life, drawn from memory, in strong outlines of black.

Process for Kalamkari

First of all Tannin is applied on the cloth by dipping it into myrobalan. Then black outline, filling is done using Ferrous acetate solution using indigenous methods. Then alum is applied on the portion where red is desired. Then solution is boiled with Alizarin to get the red colors.

After that the cloth is dried, and yellow is applied by mixing myrobalan with Alum.
Blue is applied by mixing Indigo solution in an alkaline solution of Lime and Fuller's earth. To get a green, blue is applied on the solutions which are already yellow.

Main features of Kalamkari

Srikalahasti is specialized in figurative kalamkari. flourished under patronage of temples demanding hangings with strong figurative & narrative components. Depiction of various god & godesses, therefore no same block could be used ,so kalam became essential. Minimal use of repeats in patterns also ensured that blocks were not adopted. Figurative episodes are taken from puranas & other mythological epics and textual sources. Colour code that the paintings follow is strangely same as that of makeup of kathakali dancer from kerala or of the Andhra shadow puppets ,all gods in indigo blue, females in golden ochre yellow & demons in red.

 The Mughuls patronized this craft in the Coromandel and Golconda provinces. In the early seventeenth century as Golconda was under Muslim rule , the artistic designs produced in Masulipatnam catered to Persian taste . As Srikalahasti was under Hindu rulers, it flourished directly under the patronage of temples, and exclusively drew figures and narrated mythological stories.

Two types of kalams are use in srikalahasti -a round flat one for filling in colors and a pointed sharp tipped one for outlines. These are the same as have been used for centuries.

Naraksura vadha-the killing of demon Naraksura

Temple cloth, Kalahasti region ,19th century

Durga Mata-temple hanging

Parvati, the great goddess is the wife of god Shiva. In Hindu mythology, she is considered to be the cosmic energy, shakti and can be benevolent & fierce. In her aspect as Durga, she is a fierce golden hued woman, who rides on a tiger & is called, the inaccessible

courts musicians in king drupads court.

dunging

myrobolan treatment

painting the cloth

dyeing in red

final washing