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Warli art dates back to the 10th Century and used to be the preserve of the women of the tribe, located just outside Mumbai. It’s the only form of record available to a people that is not acquainted with written histories. Warli painting is done in white rice-powder paint on a red-ochre clay background, emulating pre-historic cave paintings, and does not depict mythological figures or divinities, but the social life of this ancestral community.
The Warli vocabulary is charged with basic graphemes, such as circles, triangles and squares. For example, two inverted triangles signify the human body, and gestures and movements can be conveyed by slightly adjusting them. Without this principle of animation there would be no life, no movement, no narrative. Warli art is rhythmic and full of movement, symbolising human activity.
Up until the late 1960s, this pictorial art was ephemeral and purely ritualistic. This changed radically in the 70s, when Jivya Soma Mashe, a man, started painting Warli art for purely aesthetic reasons. His talent was duly recognised and has earned him the highest artistic accolades in India. Thanks to his success, he has been able to train numerous youths in the art, which is now as cherished in India as Aboriginal art is in Australia and the West.