Gond Painting @ Silent Theatre Laboratory's Summer Cart (Camp)2012

 The Gond painting transports you to the seamless world of the imaginative and the surprising. Like most other tribal communities, the Gonds (hill people) are artistically gifted and possess astounding creative vision. Traditionally, their paintings on mud wall houses relied on shared symbols within a local community context. More recently they have taken to painting on canvas or paper using new colours and new themes.

 

One of the largest tribal communities in South Asia and perhaps the world, the Gonds, are mainly found in Madhya Pradesh and its surrounding States.

 Gond paintings in their singular, “two-dimensional” style cover numerous themes – folk stories, religion, nature etc. They may be bursting with flamboyant hues or more controlled, in the simple sophistication of black and white. Though similar in style, they are individual in expression and interpretation.

 It is interesting to observe that Gond paintings bear a remarkable likeness to Australian aboriginal art as both forms use dots or lines as fillers.

The Gond tribe, one of the famous tribes belonging to the Mandala region of Madhya Pradesh, has a typical style of painting, known as Gond paintings. Painted freehand, these two dimensional paintings reflect their perception of life. The third dimension, the depth is always lacking in these paintings reflecting the simplicity of the artist. Sometimes these paintings also tell how colorful their imagination can be. They put colors to the blandest creations of the nature at times. For example you can see the lizard here in our collection with colorful stripes and dots. They can be treated as the expression of their desire to color the nature as well, if we think philosophically.