India · Painting / Ritual Wall Art
પિઠોરા (pithora)
Painted on the interior walls of houses by the Rathwa, Bhil and Bhilala communities of eastern Gujarat and western Madhya Pradesh, in thanksgiving and for wishes granted. A large frieze of horses and riders, with a central place for the god Pithoro, is painted in a ritual led by named community specialists, who include the badva, the lakhara (painter) and the ghardhani (householder). Registered as a Geographical Indication in 2021.
Risk level: Vulnerable · Not inscribed
The drawing of large images of deities on temple or house floors in Kerala with five natural powders, by hand and finger, as part of a ritual accompanied by songs (thottam).
A portable wooden shrine with folding painted doors, made by the Jangid carpenters (suthars) of Bassi, Chittorgarh district, Rajasthan, and carried by Kavadiya Bhat storytellers of Marwar.
Hand-modeled hollow-relief votive plaques of village deities, especially Devnarayan, made by Kumhar potters of Molela, Rajsamand district, Rajasthan.
A ritual art of Meena women in the Sawai Madhopur and Hadoti regions of Rajasthan.
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.
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).
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Bark painting is the primary visual art form of Arnhem Land Aboriginal communities — paintings in natural ochre pigments on sheets of stringybark (Eucalyptus tetrodonta) that are stripped, flattened, heated, and prepared as a smooth…
Ochre — iron oxide mineral pigments ranging from yellow to red to purple — is the primary painting material of Aboriginal Australian visual culture, used in bark painting, body painting, rock art, and ceremony for at least 65,000 years.
The deliberate revival of natural stone mosaic craftsmanship in Aleppo, led by visual artist Asma Mahbouk, founder of the Armagan natural stone mosaic team, specifically launched in 2018 with the aim of reviving an art form she directly…
Pakistan truck art is the tradition of elaborately decorating commercial trucks, buses, and rickshaws with paintings, carved wood panels, metal chains, and reflective tape — creating the most densely decorated commercial vehicles in the…
The Ohrid icon painting school of North Macedonia — the production of the distinctive Ohrid Byzantine icons in the tradition of the 9th-century St.