Traditions & movements

Know what you are looking at.

Most marketplaces flatten centuries of distinct practice into a single tag. These are not styles — they are communities, methods and calendars, each with its own tests of quality. Here is what each one is, how it is made, and what to ask before you buy.

Living traditions

Practices with a continuous community behind them — most passed down through families, many still tied to a festival, a temple or a season.

Gond

Madhya Pradesh, India

Dense line and dot work, animals and trees carried by pattern.

Ancient practice; on paper and canvas since the 1980s

Madhubani (Mithila)

Mithila, Bihar, India

Ritual wall painting of Mithila — deities, fish, filled borders, no empty space.

Centuries old; on paper since the 1960s

Warli

Maharashtra, India

White figures on earth-brown ground, built from circles, triangles and lines.

Documented from the 10th century; on paper since the 1970s

Pichwai

Nathdwara, Rajasthan, India

Devotional cloth hangings for Shrinathji — lotus ponds, cows, gold leaf.

17th century onward

Pattachitra

Odisha and West Bengal, India

Cloth scroll painting with fine black line, natural pigment and a lacquer finish.

12th century onward

Kalamkari

Andhra Pradesh, India

Pen-drawn and block-printed cloth, coloured with plant dye and iron mordant.

Ancient; distinct Srikalahasti and Machilipatnam schools

Movements & eras

The moments when the question changed, and painting went somewhere it had not been before.

Bengal School

Calcutta, India

The first modern Indian movement — wash technique, nationalist in intent.

c. 1900–1940

Modernism

Europe, then worldwide

The break from representation — form, colour and surface as the subject.

c. 1890–1950

Bauhaus & Constructivism

Germany and Russia

Geometry as a social programme — art built like architecture.

c. 1917–1933

Art Deco

France, then global — including Bombay

Streamlined luxury — symmetry, metallics, and speed rendered as ornament.

c. 1920–1940