Kalamkari is the process of
hand-painting or block-printing on fabric. The two major centres of kalamkariart are Sri kalahasti and Machilipatnam in the state of Andhra Pradesh, India.
Natural dyes are used in this painting. Kalamkari printing is beautiful and
done on various fabrics like cotton, silk, georgette, chiffon, crape andsupernet. Trees, creepers, flowers, leaf and birds are some of the popular
motifs. Kalamkari patch work over other fabrics is fashion and in demand. Fancy
kalamkari printing on south pure cotton sari is a refreshing attire of whole
day. Appealing kalamkari hand painted on
chanderi silk saree is eye-catching. And are apt to wedding, bridal occasions,
corporate office, traditional festivals like sankranthi, diwali, dussehra,
pongal.
Designer embroidered sico sarees of kalamkari patch
border with an elegant pallu are a wonderful party wear.Kalamkari (Telugu: కలంకారి) or Qalamkari is a type of hand-painted or
block-printed cotton textile, produced in parts of India. The word is derived
from the Persian words kalam (pen) and kari (craftmanship), meaning drawing with a pen. The Machilipatnam Kalamkari craft made at Pedana near
by Machilipatnam in Krishna district, Andhra Pradesh, evolved with patronage of the Mughalsand the Golconda sultanate. There are two distinctive styles of kalamkari
art in India - one, the Srikalahasti style and the other, the Machilipatnam style of art. The Srikalahasti style of Kalamkari, wherein the
"kalam" or pen is used for free hand drawing of the subject and
filling in the colours, is entirely hand worked.
This style flowered around temples and
their patronage and so had an almost religious identity - scrolls, temple
hangings, chariot banners and the like,
depicted deities and scenes taken from the great Hindu epics - Ramayana. Mahabarata, Puranas and
the mythological classics. This style owes its present status to Smt.
Kamaladevi Chattopadhayay who popularised the art as the first Chairperson of
the All India Handicrafts Board. Only natural dyes are used in Kalamkari
and it involves seventeen painstaking steps.
In modern times the term is also used to
refer, incorrectly, to the making of any cotton fabric patterned through the
medium of vegetable dyes by free-hand painting and block-printing, produced in
many different regions of India. In places where the fabric is block printed
the Kalam (pen) is used to draw finer details and for application of some
colours.
The cotton fabric gets its glossiness
by immersing it for an hour in a mixture of myrabalam (resin) and cow
milk. Contours and reasons are then drawn with a point in bamboo soaked in a mixture
of jagri fermented and water; one by one
these are applied, then the vegetable dyes. After applying each color, the
Kalamkari is washed. Thus, each fabric can undergo up to 20 washings. Various
effects are obtained by using cow
dung, seeds, plants and crushed flowers.Myrobalan is not a resin. Myrobalan,
because of its high tannin content is used along with buffalo milk to fix the
natural dyes on cotton.
Kalamkari is a
word that runs through the history of Indian Textiles from the beginnings as a
simple folkcraft through both great and bad times down to its revival today.
Kalam comes from the Persian language and means `pen' and Kari means
`work'. Actually the name came into being with the Muslim influences coming
into India, although the technique and practice is far older than that.The beginnings
of Kalamkari probably rest in South India and grew out of the need to
illustrate some of the temple rituals. The temples commissioned large religious
themed cloths. It is also true that with the advent of carbon dating, we are
continually finding evidence of very old Indian textiles excavated in places
like Fostat in Egypt, and Mohenjodaro and Harappa now in Pakistan. A number of
heirloom cloths, which are quite old, have been discovered in Indonesia. A good
number of these cloths came from the west of India, from Gujarat and Surat.
Many of the cloths were block printed, some were painted cloths and there is
also some evidence of Kalamkari as we know it.
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