How the Gond art transformed from rock-mud-walls to canvas

Madhavi Uike

Translated by Chandresh Meravi

On 11 November 2019, the multinational mining conglomerate Adani group organised an exhibition titled ‘Gondwana’ in their headquarter in Ahmedabad, where two artists from Australian Aboriginal communities, Otto Jungarrayi Sims and Patrick Japangardi Williams, were invited to India to collaborate with the Pardhan-Gond artist, Bhajju Shyam. This was a strategic move by the Adani group, which is facing severe resistance from the Aboriginal communities in Australia and Koitur people in India for extracting mineral resources from their indigenous ancestral territories. The term Gondwana refers to the region considered as ancestral territory of Koitur people, who are also identified by the Indian state as Gond or Koya people. Gondwana roughly comprises of former Central Province and Berar (under British colonial rule) and is now divided in six different states – Chhattisgarh, Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra, Telangana, Odisha, and Uttar Pradesh.

The practice of depicting everyday life, culture and histories on the cave rocks was one of the most ancient practices of the Indigenous peoples across the world. In central India’s Gondwana region, the Koitur or Gond people have been practicing rock art in caves and outside the walls of their houses for generations. After decades of transformation, these art practices have taken new forms in paintings and canvases, and become one of the most notable Indigenous art forms of India. The Adivasi or Indigenous art forms in India such as Pithora art, Warli art, Bhil art and Gond art are not merely combinations of colour and pictures, but it also depicts literature and history of the people in a certain time period. In the context of Gond art, for instance, the Gond paintings represent unique Indigenous philosophy, origin story, and histories.

The genealogy of Gond art goes back to many generations, where art and murals were drawn on walls of houses using materials such as – leaves, trees, bark, red-yellow-black coloured soil, limestone, cow dung, flowers and so on. These wall and floor paintings are called as bhitti chitra and dhigna art. According to community elders, the idea behind building these arts on walls was to decorate houses and to also ward off evil spirits. Bhitti chitra, a form of wall paintings done using mud, cow dung, and natural colours, and dhingana art,  the traditional art of wall paintings by Pardhan-Gond people, used natural objects to visually express themselves. The Pardhan artist and author Venkat Raman Shyam told me that ‘the word bhit means wall, while bhitti also means inside, thus Bhitti Chitra is wall painting, a type of mural painting especially done among Adivasi communities such as Bhil, Koitur and Warli communities.’ The Dhingana art, according to Venkat, is done on floors of the house. ‘In older times, it was done using colours from plant leaves (bush or kidney beans leaves) or flowers (palash or butea momosperma), red and yellow soil (ochre), limestone, cow dung, charcoal, wood ash and so on.’ He added that besides making the houses beautiful, the art ‘paid tributes to their ancestral spirits’. Similarly, tattoos can be considered one of the first art forms practiced by the Adivasi communities. According to Koitur creation stories narrated by the Pardhan people, right after the first male and first female –Naga Baiga and Naga Baigin – was created, the Baiga women started Godna (tattoo) on their foreheads and rest of the body as she did not go in front of bada dev without clothes. They were ordered to manage all life forms on earth.

Describing the transformation of the Gond art over years, Roma Chatterjee, a professor of Sociology at University of Delhi, in her book Speaking with Pictures argues that, according to Swaminathan, birds, mountains, or trees no longer “served to represent the manifest world of physical reality but became symbols of the human psyche.” She adds, ‘Gond art is a form that emerged self-consciously in the precinct of a modern institution, Bharat Bhawan, at a time when modern art the world over was questioning its European Legacy. It was through the so-called primitive arts – the arts of marginal cultures – that an alternative genealogy for modernist abstraction was sought.’

In 1981, Gond painting was first used on canvas by Jangarh Singh Shyam, a Pardhan-Gond artist from Madhya Pradesh’s Patan. Pardhan-Gond people are part of the larger Koitur community and have historically been considered the bards, carriers of oral histories of Koitur people, as they sang songs about Gondwana’s history and practiced visual art form in their walls. Shyam was brought to Bhopal’s Bharat Bhawan by the Brahmin artist Jagdish Swami Nathan. Shyam became the most influential Gond artist of the generation and his art travelled across many countries. In 2001, while Shyam was at a residency fellowship in Japan’s Mithila Museum, he died by suicide. His death still remains a mystery for many, as Shyam was at the peak of his artistic career. After his death, Gond art was taken forward by his family members. Currently, Anand Shyam, Venkat Raman Shyam, Bhajju Shyam, Japani Shyam, Roshni Vyam, among others are the contemporary Gond artists, whose works have brought global recognition to Gondi paintings.

The contemporary Gond paintings on canvas primarily use dot-painting technique. The practice is believed to have been derived from the traditional practice in bhitti chitra (mural art) and Godna art (tattoos done by Adivasi communities). Similarly, the dot-painting technique on canvas used by Australian Aboriginal painters also emerged in the early 1970s as Aboriginal communities worked with a white schoolteacher, Geoffrey Bardon. The dot-painting technique however was traditionally used by the aboriginal communities drew sacred designs for ceremonies and the body paint used by them used circles and dots. 

According to Venkat, dot means ‘the starting point of the beginning or life’. He recalled that once when Swaminathan asked Jangarh to draw pictures of gods and goddesses they considered sacred, Jangarh drew a Bana – an indigenous string instrument – and a Saja tree on canvas. When Swaminathan asked him what it was and where were the gods, Jangarh replied, ‘we worship bada dev, who cannot be seen and doesn’t have a figure or statue, and resides in every element of life.’ In Koitur community, Saja tree is considered the residence of persa pen or bada dev, who is worshipped by playing bana. Roma Chatterjee writes that, ‘Jangarh’s gods did not look human and it is thought that the interlocking lines and arabesques were inspired by the designs that were used to decorate Pardhan village homes. It also gave his figures an air of mystery that appealed to the sophisticated urban audience.’

Besides wall paintings, there is an age-old practice of wood carving among the Koitur Gond people. Wood carving can be seen in the sacred wooden pillar used during the wedding ceremonies. Similarly, wooden memory pillars are built for deceased persons in various parts of Bastar, Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra, and Telangana. Similarly, Dhokra art form of Bastar uses metal carving to depict Koitur religious and cultural symbols. In many ways, the contemporary Gond art is an extension of various art forms produced by the community for generations. The wall paintings, just like the Bhitti Chitra – Bhimbetka cave paintings (which are considered as art-form of ancestors by the Koitur people) carry with them religious, cultural, and other symbolisms. These symbolisms, such as sacred trees, animals, and other beings, are reproduced again in the contemporary canvas paintings.

In Gond paintings, every human or non-living being is depicted as a living being or as part of nature. Even modern objects are depicted as trees, animals – suggesting that nature is central to these paintings. This is mere reflection of Adivasi social reality, wherein Adivasi life cannot be imagined without trees, forests, animals, and their natural surroundings. This natural world is also an integral part of Adivasi belief systems. In Koitur community, its 750 plus clans are expected to take special care of one plant and one animal totem of their respective clan. This means at least 1500 different trees and animals, which not only constitute a religious and ceremonial element but are also linked to birth-wedding-death cycle of the community. Additionally, trees such as Mahua and Saja are considered sacred by the community, and their imagery can be easily found in Gond paintings. Similarly, the bhitti chitra and Dhingana art does not only decorate the walls, but also is a way of paying respect to Adivasi deities and ancestors. In this manner, Gond painting also represents the Indigenous belief system practiced by the Gond community. Hence, another parallel that can be drawn between the Aboriginal and Gond art is how they portray their respective religious and cultural beliefs.

It is a common sight for Adivasi communities doing wall paintings, while singing folk songs. These folk songs are a crucial source of oral history of communities and narrate many folk stories, which are then again reproduced in paintings. These folklores are not merely for entertainment purposes but carry with them a vast knowledge of community’s history, indigenous knowledge, rituals and so on. Pardhan community, as mentioned earlier, were traditionally the bards of Koitur people, who travelled to far villages and sang songs narrating history of Koitur people, origin story, and other forms of oral history. The arrival of Bharat Bhavan and Jangarh Shyam, therefore also meant a significant shift of Pardhan-Gond community from music and songs to visual art.

The contemporary Gond painting mostly carries natural imagery such as trees (mahua and saaja), birds, animals (totemic emblems), and humans. Each subject is drawn in dot and line patterns and the overall design represents a uniformity of this technique. Each Pardhan artist has their own unique design. Some patterns are commonly used by everyone. However, some patterns are representative of a particular artist and certain design patterns are considered unique signatures of that artist. This distinction in signature designs is really important in the context of Gond paintings. For Jangarh Shyam – the dot and line signature was derived from the V-shape and dot form of tattoo drawn on the forehead of a Baiga woman. Nankusiya Bai (wife of late Jangarh Shyam Wife), after the Shyam’s demise, began using the same design to carry forward his legacy. Venkat Shyam, for instance, used lightning stones symbols found in Godna (body tattoo). Currently, he uses a semi-circle and dot that suggests supreme god and the 5 semi-circle that suggests 5 senses. His other pattern is black fibre, for which he got inspiration by seeing the fibres on the bark of a saja tree. Anand Shyam’s signature uses U-shape and lines. It was inspired from the moon in the night sky.  The signatures fill up the space drawn on the subject and objects of each Gond painting.