Kalamkari is a type of hand-painted or block-printed cotton textile produced in Isfahan, Iran, and in the Indian state of Andhra Pradesh.Only natural dyes are used in Kalamkari, which involves twenty-three steps.
There are two distinctive styles of Kalamkari art in India – Srikalahasti style and the Machilipatnam style.The Srikalahasti style of Kalamkari, where the “kalam” or pen is used for freehand drawing of the subject and filling in the colors, is entirely hand worked.
This style flourished in temples centered on creating unique religious identities, appearing on scrolls, temple hangings, chariot banners as well as depictions of deities and scenes taken from the Hindu epics (e.g.Ramayana, Mahabharata and Purana).The style owes its present status to Kamaladevi Chattopadhyay who popularized the art as the first chairperson of the All India Handicrafts Board.
Dyes for the cloth are obtained by extracting colors from various roots, leaves, and mineral salts of iron, tin, copper, and alum.Various effects are obtained by using cow dung, seeds, plants and crushed flowers to obtain natural dye.Along with buffalo milk, myrobalan is used in kalamkari.Myrobalan is also used to remove the odd smell of buffalo milk.
The fixing agents available in the myrobalan can easily fix the dye or color of the textile while treating the fabric.Alum is used in making natural dyes and also while treating the fabric.
Alum ensures the stability of the color in Kalamkari fabric.Kalamkari specifically depicts epics such as the Ramayana or Mahabharata.
However, there are recent applications of the Kalamkari technique to depict Buddha and Buddhist art forms.In recent times, many aesthetically good figures such as musical instruments, small animals, flowers, Buddha and few Hindu symbols, like swastika are also introduced to Kalamkari.
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