kalamkari art

Kalamkari cloth

feel the gift of the nature

Kalamkari is the ancient Indian art that originated about 3000 years ago. The discovery of resist-dyed piece of cloth on silver vase at the ancient site of Harappa confirms that the tradition of Kalamkari is very old. Even the ancient Buddhist Chaitya Viharas were decorated with Kalamkari cloth. The great Alexander was also supposed to have acquired this Kalamkari cloth.

Kalamkari refers to a method of painting natural dyes on cotton or silk fabric with a bamboo pen or kalam. The name kalamkari translates as a pen (kalam) work (kari Hindi/Urdu, and was most likely derived from trade relationships between Persian and Indian merchants as early as the 10th century CE. European merchants also had names for this type of fabric decoration.

The Portuguese called it Pintado,

The Dutch used the name Sitz and

The British preferred Chintz.

The name kalamkari is prominently used today, and is synonymous with both painted and hand block printed textiles that incorporate natural vegetable/organic-derived dye stuffs.

The dyes are obtained by extracting colours from plants – roots, leaves along with mineral salts of iron, tin, copper, alum, etc, wich are used as mordants.

Kalamkari work is seen on different products like saris, drapes, hand towels, wall paintings, prayer rugs wrappers, bed covers, door covers and dress materials.

The harmless, naturally dyed fabrics are used for Kalamkari. Many of the dyes are

extracted from materials that have medicinal properties. Myrobalam, a popular herb in Indian medicine, is a valuable mordant dye, crucial to the Kalamkari craft which gives the cloth strength and protects the body.

 

No chemical dyes are used in producing Kalamkari colours. Among the vegetable dyes, the basic colours of black, red, blue are the most prize. The path leading you
close to the nature
The
KALAMKARI