Kalamkari

What is Kalamkari?

Kalamkari is cloth decoration from Andhra Pradesh in which every line and colour is put on by hand or with a hand-carved block. The name pairs two Persian words, kalam for pen and kari for work, after the maker's chief tool: a bamboo or date-palm stick with a wisp of hair at its tip. Cotton is the usual base, and nothing synthetic colours it, only dyes drawn from plants, roots and mineral matter. A finished cloth passes through twenty-three stages. Two towns lead the craft: Srikalahasti paints its cloth freehand, while Machilipatnam and nearby Pedana print theirs with wooden blocks. The look reaches wardrobes too, since saris, dupattas and blouse pieces of silk, mulmul, cotton and synthetic fabric are sold with kalamkari patterning.

Where does Kalamkari come from?

Storytelling bands of painters and singers, the chitrakattis, once carried the myths of Hinduism from settlement to settlement, painting wide canvas rolls on the spot with plant colour; temple scrolls, hangings and chariot banners served the same purpose for people who could not read. The craft flourished under the Vijayanagara Empire in the south. Its present name arrived with Deccan rule by the Golconda sultanate and the Mughals, whose courts called the workers Qualamkars. The roots look older still: a scrap of resist-dyed cloth attached to a silver vase from Harappa, dated around 2600 BC, and a vine-edged fabric in a Scythian tomb of the fourth century BC are both cited as early relatives. Kamaladevi Chattopadhyay later revived its fortunes through the All India Handicrafts Board.

How is Kalamkari made?

Preparation comes first: the cotton soaks in astringents and buffalo milk, then lies in the sun. Mordant is applied where red, black, brown or violet must appear, and the cloth enters an alizarin bath. For blue, wax shields every part that must stay undyed, the fabric dips in indigo, the wax is scraped off, and the remaining areas are brushed in by hand, a method that resembles Indonesian batik. The kalam is a pointed bamboo or date-palm stick carrying a tiny bundle of hair, dipped in jaggery water before each use. Colouring materials include roots, leaves, seeds, crushed flowers, cow dung and metallic salts; myrobalan helps the dye set and masks the smell of the milk, while alum keeps the shade steady.

Colours, motifs and borders

The schools differ in subject as much as method. Srikalahasti painters fill cloth with Brahma, Saraswati, Ganesh, Durga, Shiva and Parvati, and with episodes from the Ramayana, the Mahabharata and the Puranas, because their art grew inside temples. Machilipatnam printers worked under Muslim courts, where Hindu imagery was not allowed, so their blocks cut Persian designs: leaves and flowers in interlace, the cartwheel, several lotus shapes, creepers, parrots, peacocks and above all the tree of life. After Aurangzeb's conquest of 1687, portraits of emperors and scenes of their courts appeared too. Recent themes extend to the Buddha, musical instruments, small animals and flowers.

How Kalamkari is worn

Kalamkari reaches most people as printed dress cloth. Saris of silk, mulmul, cotton and synthetic fibre carry the design, and dupattas and blouse pieces in the style are favourites with Indian women. The classic hand-painted cloth itself was seldom worn: it became scrolls, panels hung in temples, backdrops and banners for chariots. Machilipatnam yardage went to household use instead, as linen for beds and tables, curtains, dress fabric, scarves, cushion covers and sheaths for files and bags. Printed saris, which need far less labour than the twenty-three hand stages, fill the market today.

When Kalamkari is worn

For centuries the painted cloth did duty in worship and teaching: hung in temples or unrolled by travelling chitrakattis, it showed gods and epic scenes to audiences who knew the stories by ear rather than by text. In dress today it is a popular choice rather than a ceremonial one, with printed saris, dupattas and blouse pieces worn widely. Buddhist subjects now appear alongside the Hindu ones, a quiet widening of the craft's religious range.

Styles of Kalamkari

Medieval usage was broad: any Indian cotton patterned with vegetable dyes, brushed or blocked, could be called kalamkari, and where blocks did the main work the pen still drew the fine lines. A cousin craft continues in Isfahan, Iran, printing cloth with stamps of wood or metal. Machilipatnam practice has also moved on: mordant is now laid on evenly with a block, indigo vats and wax resist have gone, iron acetate produces the broad black areas, and yellow comes from dried myrobalan flowers, aldekai in Telugu and kadukai in Tamil, of Terminalia chebula.

What Kalamkari means

Both schools are registered Geographical Indications from Andhra Pradesh under the handicrafts category, Srikalahasti in April 2005 and Machilipatnam, also called Pedana Kalamkari, in April 2008, which ties each name legally to its home district. Older titles persist in the languages of the craft: Telugu speakers knew it as Vraata Pani, meaning writing-work, while painted cloth figures in Sanskrit as Pattachitra (पट्टचित्र), cloth-picture. Mentions of painted fabrics and scrolls turn up in ancient Hindu, Buddhist and Jain literature, and the temple cloth long doubled as a picture-book of the gods for people who could not read.

Questions people ask about Kalamkari

Good reading and sources

• Malini Divakala’s research on KalamkariThe Hindu, Article

• Kalamkari on WikipediaEncyclopedia
• More photos on Wikimedia CommonsPhotos and video
• Wikidata recordOpen data