Phad Painting is a folk painting style from Rajasthan, India. Phad paintings are scrolls customarily made on treated cloth and painted with natural colours. They illustrate epic stories composed around a central deity, Pabuji and Dev Narayanji, two deified heroes important in Rajasthan who are worshipped as the incarnation of lord Vishnu & Laxman. The scrolls form a visual backdrop to all-night performances accompanied by music, song and dance. Referred to as 'reading phad', the performances would follow the reading from scene to scene, each component of the narrative illuminated with an oil lamp. This is possibly why these paintings are called Phad which means folds in local dialect. Like the Kaavad shrines from Rajasthan, the scrolls were made by one group of artists, but commissioned and performed by a different community, the Bhopas. In this style, every available inch of the canvas is crowded with figures, harmoniously distributed all over the area. However, the scale of figure depends on the social status of the character they represent and the roles they play in the story.
Stone colour on paper
7''X10.5''
Stone colour on paper
7''X10.5''
Stone colour on paper
7''X10.5''
Stone colour on paper
7''X10.5''
