India · Engraving / Manuscript Art
ତାଳପତ୍ର ଚିତ୍ର (talapatra chitra); manuscript = pothi; stylus = lekhani
Etching of text and pictures on seasoned palm leaves with a sharp iron stylus, the lines then blackened with lampblack or kohl paste, as practiced in Odisha, above all in Raghurajpur village near Puri. Leaves of the palmyra and related palms are boiled or buried to season them, cut to strips, incised, rubbed with soot so the grooves darken, and strung into folding or bound sets between wooden boards. Artists engrave Radha and Krishna, Durga, Ganesha, epics and nature scenes, sometimes cutting the leaf like a stencil or layering colored paper behind it.
Risk level: Endangered · Not inscribed
Dyeing handloom cloth with extracts of Ayurvedic medicinal plants, so that the dye bath is also, in the makers' account, a remedy.
The inlaying of cut and polished semi-precious stones into white marble to form floral and geometric patterns, developed under the Mughal emperors and made famous by the Taj Mahal (built 1631–1648).
The repair of holes, tears and worn areas in fine cloth so that the damage disappears: the darner matches the weave, rebuilds the warp with a needle and then weaves the weft back in, so the mend reads as plain cloth.
Jaipur Blue Pottery is a unique ceramic tradition that is technically not pottery at all — it uses no clay.
Zardozi is a raised metallic embroidery technique using gold and silver wire, threads, and decorative elements to build dense, sculptural surface enrichment on silk and velvet.
Bandhani is a resist-dyeing technique in which small sections of fabric are tightly bound with thread before immersion in dye, creating intricate patterns of tiny undyed dots on a colored ground.
Hanji, Korean mulberry paper, cut into strips, twisted into tight cords and twined like basketry into vessels, lanterns, shoes, quivers, brush holders and trays.
Lidded bowls and rounded vessels built from hanji scraps: waste paper is finely torn, soaked in water, mixed with glue and kneaded into a clay-like paste, which is laid onto a mold or frame in repeated layers, each dried before the next,…
The making of luxury art bookbindings in the Paris tradition — hand-sewn book blocks; goatskin or calfskin leather covers tooled or inlaid with mosaic designs; gold-tooled spines; marbled endpapers (CRAFT-0998 cross-reference); gilded…
Vessels, translucent wall panels, lamps, table surfaces and framed images made from plant fibers formed in water (banana, waru and gamal, chosen according to the piece), related in principle to the Asian practice of forming a sheet from…
Ola pat (ඔල පත් — 'palmyra leaf') is the preparation of talipot palm leaves (Corypha umbraculifera) as the writing substrate for Sri Lanka's ancient manuscript tradition — the medium on which the entire Pali Buddhist canon and thousands of…
The illumination of manuscripts, calligraphic panels and documents with gold and color.