Welcome to East West Crossings and to the first example of a genuinely people’s art from the Eastern Hemisphere! We do not know about the beginnings of the Madhubani (forest of honey) form in Indian paintings, but it is as ancient as any other kind of art or artifact created in the Indian sub-continent. Long before the current crop of paintings on rice paper, popularized especially since the late 1960s, Madhubani art adorned the mud walls of huts where the people of Mithila have lived for ever.

We do know, however, that Madhubani art is the exclusive creation of the women artists of Mithila and as far as we know, there is no example in the world of folk painting that is mastered by only the women of a rural community, or of any community for that matter.

As with many other forms of women’s art within patriarchal configurations, Madhubani art was created within the confines of the artists’ homes, their drams and fantasies taking form in the terms of domestic” themes, figures, and events. The birth of a child, rituals connected with the seasons, stories from the Indian epics, exploits of gods and goddesses, the natural world visible to the artists, all form the subject matter of Madhubani paintings. At the same time, there is a surprising show of the empowerment of women in many of these paintings, principally by the way different goddesses are represented.

Another point to note is that our artists do not belong to any school, but create “schools” of their own. In other words, we can see distinctive differences between artists painting, say in 1976 and 2006, and yet the overarching Madhubani form remains unaltered. A characteristic of this kind of peoples’ art is that the story of the individual artist is not tangible. She moves through history without any drama or fanfare—only her art, quite anonymous in most instances—retains her spirit and any drama she observes in her world.

In this exhibit, there are a number of creatures from the “animal world”: elephants and turtles, fishes and birds, a few depictions of the Lord Krishna with his flute, Ganesh and Durga, even a gathering of friends, and many trees. As such, the exhibited pieces do not represent the full range of themes and styles. We hope to add other pieces to the exhibit in time, and as space allows.

Joy and Ran Mitra, January 1, 2007