The no-jargon glossary
The art world hides behind its vocabulary. We don't. Here is the language of Indian art, defined the way we wish someone had told us: plainly, warmly, in a single breath.
- Ragamala राग-माला
- A garland of melodies. Paintings that paint music, one canvas for each raga, each with its own mood, season and cast. You are looking at a song.
- Bhava भाव
- The feeling. The emotion a face, a hand or a tilt of the head is meant to stir in you. Not to look real, but to make you feel. Indian art's whole job, in one word.
- Rasa रस
- The flavour. The mood you are left tasting after a work: love, wonder, courage, sorrow, peace. If bhava is what the artist puts in, rasa is what you carry out.
- Mudra मुद्रा
- A hand sign. A fixed gesture that carries a fixed meaning, from a blessing to fearlessness to teaching. In Indian art, the hands are talking. Learn a few and the gods start speaking.
- Pichwai पिछवाई
- Behind the god. Large painted cloths hung behind the Krishna idol at Nathdwara, swapped with the festival and the season. Devotion you can roll up and change.
- Jali जाली
- A lattice screen. The pierced stone or wood you see in Mughal buildings, turning hard sunlight into soft pattern and giving privacy without walls.
- Pattachitra ପଟ୍ଟଚିତ୍ର
- Cloth picture. A scroll-painting tradition telling temple and Jagannath stories in bold outline and natural colour, painted on treated cloth.
- Kalamkari కలంకారీ
- Pen work. Cloth hand-drawn or block-printed and coloured with natural dyes, often telling epics panel by panel. The name means, literally, work of the pen.
- Tanjore தஞ்சாவூர்
- Gods dipped in gold. South Indian panels where the figure is raised in relief, gilded in real gold leaf and set with glass, so the deity glows in lamplight.
- Miniature
- Small, not minor. A painting made to be held and pored over, not hung across a wall. The scale is intimate, the detail is enormous. Bring your eyes close.
- Chiaroscuro
- Light against dark. The drama of a bright figure glowing out of deep shadow. Caravaggio is the famous name, but look at a Raja Ravi Varma and you will see it made Indian.
- Impasto
- Thick paint. Colour laid on so heavily you can see the mark of the brush or knife standing off the surface. Paint you could almost read with your fingertips.
A word you keep seeing and no one explains? Tell us and we'll add it.