India · Painting / Ritual Wall Art
ಹಸೆ ಚಿತ್ತಾರ (hase chittara); ದೀವರು (Deevaru)
A ritual wall-painting tradition of the Deevaru community of Sagar and the Shimoga region of Karnataka. Women paint geometric and figurative panels in rice paste on the red-washed wall of the wedding room, using fiber brushes. The central wedding panel is called the hasegode chittara.
Risk level: Endangered · Not inscribed
Moirangphee is the traditional handwoven shawl of the Meitei people of Manipur, woven on a body-tension loin-loom using locally grown cotton (originally) and mulberry silk.
Kotpad handloom is a cotton handloom weaving tradition from Kotpad block, Koraput district, Odisha — on the Chhattisgarh border — practiced by the Mirgan community for the Bondo, Kondh, and Gadaba tribal communities.
Muga silk is the only naturally golden-colored wild silk in the world, produced exclusively in Assam from the semi-domesticated silkworm Antheraea assamensis, which feeds on Som (Machilus bombycina) and Sualu (Litsaea polyantha) trees.
Zardozi is a metallic thread embroidery tradition using real gold and silver wire (zar = gold, dozi = embroidery in Persian) worked onto velvet, silk, or satin ground fabric using a hooked needle (aari) or hand-stitching technique.
The tribes of Northeast India — particularly in Arunachal Pradesh, Tripura, Meghalaya, and Mizoram — have developed among the most sophisticated cane and bamboo working traditions in Asia.
Nagaland is home to 16 major tribes, each producing distinct handwoven shawls on body-tension loin-looms as markers of tribal identity, social status, and achievement.
The painting and carving of the carretto siciliano — the decorated Sicilian cart — covering every surface with narrative scenes from the Carolingian cycle, Norman history, and religious subjects in vivid primary colors (red, yellow, blue,…
Sentani bark cloth painting is the decorative and ritual art tradition of the Sentani people of Lake Sentani, near Jayapura in Papua.
The Ohrid icon painting school of North Macedonia — the production of the distinctive Ohrid Byzantine icons in the tradition of the 9th-century St.
The distinctive gouache and pastel painting technique developed and taught at the Poto-Poto School of Painting, founded in 1951 in the Moungali neighborhood of Brazzaville, Republic of the Congo, by young French amateur painter Pierre Lods…
The application of vivid, glossy bicycle and enamel paint onto board or canvas in bold, naive, narrative style, founded by Edward Saidi Tingatinga (who both worked and died at Muhimbili Hospital, Dar es Salaam) and originating as a…
The hand-construction and hand-painting of the carreta, Costa Rica's national symbol since 1988 and a UNESCO-recognized Masterpiece of Oral and Intangible Heritage since 2005, whose brightly colored, intricately patterned decoration began…