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the Banyan Tree
Beneath
The Banyan Tree - Mithila Paintings
The
Mithila paintings derive from an ancient cultural region
in northern Bihar where women’s paintings have been
used to consecrate space for human habitation and ritual
purposes for many generations. In this region, a sharp contrast
is drawn between ritual, consecrated space and the ordinary
space inhabited by dangerous spirits where chaos reigns.
In addition to floor paintings called aripan, women make
their homes fit for human habitation by painting the walls
of wedding chambers with symbolic wall paintings. The paintings
are filled with magical properties and cover the walls near
their hearths with images of their gods and goddesses. For
weddings and festivals, they embellish the outer walls of
their homes with elaborate drawings based on familiar mythological
stories. Hence a major theme here is women’s art for
the domestic world, and especially art that is found in
association with life-cycle events.
Paper
was introduced into the Mithila painting tradition in the
1960’s. The changeover to a portable support for the
paintings moved the locus of the artists’ efforts
out of the home and removed the creation of this art from
its ritual setting. Despite the persistence of traditional
themes, the change to paper also allowed the women artists
to experiment with newer themes, and allowed them a broader
freedom of expression. Today it is not unusual to see contemporary
social themes and current events incorporated into the Mithila
painters’ work.
The pieces in this exhibition belong the
H. Daniel Smith Collection, also owned by Syracuse University.
Professor Emeritus of Religion, H. Daniel Smith taught at
Syracuse from the 1960’s through the 1990’s.
In addition to the Mithila paintings and Indian brasses
found in the University Art Collection, he donated some
3000 ‘god posters’ to Special Collections in
Bird Library, a collection which attracts scholars from
around the world.
In
1980, Professor Smith asked his colleague and filmmaker
Durai Rajendren to travel to Mithila to collect paintings
for him. One hundred were collected, but approximately one-third
were lost in transit from India to the United States. The
remainder form the collection represented here.
An additional three paintings were collected
by the directors of the Ethnic Arts Foundation on a trip
to Mithila in 2002. Two were purchased by Susan S. Wadley
for use in this exhibition, while a third is on loan from
the Foundation. These three represent crucial shifts in
Mithila art work, including two pieces by male artists and
one non-religious piece by a woman.
