Another form of Pattachitra, apart from painting on the cloth, is the most amazing engravings over a palm leaf.  This very complicated art form is done on dried palm leaves and stitched up together to look for a canvas.  These amazingly beautiful intricacies are delicately done as one small move can destroy their entire creativity.

Beautiful and Traditional Art Work over Palm Leaves – Pattachitra

The stitching is done so that the carvings depict an entire picture and there are no gaps or lines to say that they are joined together.  Again, the art relates to fables and stories from the Hindu mythology and tells tales photographically about an incident or episode of a God or Goddess, their different stages, to make the people understand the flow of their deity’s life.

Pattachitra – Beautiful Art over dried palm leaves stitched together.

As for the palm leaf engraving, this form of Pattachitra which is in Odiya language is known as Tala Pattachitra is drawn on palm leaf.  The palm leaves are cut off and left to dry to give the artist a hard surface to work on.  They are then stitched together and then the carvings follow. The images are traced by using black ink with a special iron tip nib, and are carved to give the effect of a black color filled images.  These leaves that are stitched together can also be easily folded like a fan or framed. Often palm-leaf illustrations are very elaborate, and in some cases, there could be two leaves stuck together to give the illusion of a window that can be opened to show another art beneath it.  If the leaves are multi layered, then a cloth frame is stitched around to give it support.

Stories of Gods and Goddesses etched over a palm leaf.

History

Since the beginning of time, before paper was invented, people used to write and draw on palm leaves with stylus made of twigs sharpened with rocks to give the effect of a fine tip pen.  Interestingly, all the Hindu holy books, like the Ramayana and the Mahabharata, the Vedas and the Upanishads, and also other mythology stories were all written on palm leaves.

The Intricate Image of Ganesha Etched by Hand Over Dried Palm Leaves.

As per the Wikipedia,

“In its extant form, Valmiki’s Ramayana is an epic poem of some 24,000 verses. The text survives in several thousand partial and complete manuscripts, the oldest of which is a palm-leaf manuscript now found in Nepal, and dated to the 11th century CE. A Times of India report dated 18 December 2015 informs about the discovery of a 6th-century manuscript of the Ramayana at the Asiatic Society library, Kolkata.”

Ramayana is one of the holy book of the Hindus since very ancient times.  Ramayana or the story of King Ram, in India, who is still worshiped as a God.  Palm leaf illustrations and writings were done in great detail, and represented delicate, minute and beautiful mythological figures of gods and goddesses adorned with flowers, animals, fish and nature in any form.  A pictorial story form with verses.

Lives of Hindu Gods depicted over Palm Leaves in a pictorial form

Process

Since the art form is done on palm leaves, they are first collected in the same texture, color and appearance.  They are then coated with a mix of turmeric and neem for their anti fungal and anti bacterial properties to save the leaf from getting destroyed to fungus or insects eating them up. For every 50 leaves, 100 grams of turmeric coupled with neem leaves are soaked in water.  The turmeric gives it the yellow/greenish base tone. The coated palm leaves are then left to dry in the sun.

An Artist demonstrating the etching process.

The dried palm leaves are then cut to the desired size.  Using needle and thread, the fragments of the dried palm leaf is stitched up together to form a flat square or rectangular shape.  Sometimes cotton piping or borders are stitched to give it a finished look, otherwise left natural, depending on the artist’s choice.

An iron nib stylus, called “lekhani” or the tool for writing, is used to engrave and etch on the dried palm leaves.  The etched portions are cut out and are filled with colors. Mostly black is the color used, but we can see greens and yellows, reds and whites as well which are applied by a brush.  Black gives the palm etching a natural look The black color used comes from soot that is collected from burning at nights, and mixed with tree sap and water to give the right thick consistency.  The excess black is removed quickly by washing, so that the leaf does not absorb all the unwanted color.

How the first etch appears and is carved more to fill in the designs.

Mostly circles are etched out to fill in the main theme or character of the painting.  The rest of the leaf is covered with intricate detail to leave the admirer spellbound. Each piece takes about 15-20 days to complete or even more depending on the art to be etched.

Folded and Stitched Palm Leaf Pattachitra. Can be framed or kept like that.

The painting is folded like a panel and and is tied with string.  These are sometimes covered with cotton cloth in case there are many leaf parchments attached to each other, or left as it is, as the need may be.

Beautiful and exotic, unique art form from India

Nowadays, we can frame these great works of art, or use them as wall hangings.  They can be unique gifts and to anyone who loves art, will marvel at this choice.  They also come as book marks, or post card size and as large as a canvas painting.

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