Part of: GS Prelims and Mains I – Art and Culture; Paintings
Key pointers and features:
Madhubani literally means “forests of honey”. It is a traditional Indian painting.
Madhubani belongs to Mithila region in the areas of Indo-Nepal border across Bihar.
Madhubani paintings include both mythology and natural objects like sun, moon, plants etc. Mostly done by women.
In Madhubani paintings, a cotton wrapped around bamboo stick is used as brush.
In Madhubani paintings, the work is done on freshly plastered mud walls. Now a days, for commercial purposes, it is done on cloth and paper also.
In Madhubani, different colours are obtained in different ways. For e.g. black from mixture of soot and cow dung, white from mixture of rice powder etc.
