Kavad Art

Most cultural expressions survive in India because of a strong sense of identity and pride the practitioners have in their ancestral heritage.

The jajmans, as their patrons were earlier called, consisted of local aristocrats and the noble gentry.

The community of Kavad makers use the surname Suthar and others add Jangid to their name to signify that the community are Jangid Brahmins, descendants of the Lord Visvakarma, considered the divine architect of the universe and supreme God of the arts. They work as both carpenters and painters.

When they go to cities to sell their Kavads as cultural artifacts, they tell the customer the stories in the paintings. When they are not fully occupied with the Kavad, many continue with farming or other forms of work.

Satyanarayan Suthar, of Bassi village in Rajasthan, creates Kavads and also reaches out to the wider world for his sales and marketing using his cellphone.

Kavads are made from the wood of the mango or semal trees.

Satyanarayan procures his annual requirement of wood and stores it in a loft above his home.

Most Kavads are 1’ to 2.5’ high with 12 to 16 panels on wooden pivots and metal hinges.

Simple tools are used to make the structure.

Satyanarayan measures and saws the wood, drills, joins and smoothens.

Depending on the nature of the work or order, he may make a single piece, or make a batch of pieces of identical dimensions.

Once the individual parts are ready, they are painted before being assembled.

Kavad artists use colours derived from minerals, which are in the form of powders that can be procured from the market.

These are mixed with a solution of tree resin which acts as an adhesive, to make a colour palette of white, red, blue, yellow, green and black.

Women in the household help in mixing colours with the resin. In most craft forms, women are actively involved in the production process.

The original Kavad was always on a red background. Nowadays Kavads are made to suit a variety of tastes and functions, and are made in a range of colours.

For smaller Kavads, this step is skipped, and the colourful figures are painted on directly.

The colours are applied one by one in layers, each layer adding the next stage of depth and detailing.

The third colour has been applied according to the system of adding one colour after another in multiple pieces at the same time.

Once all the colours are applied, the detailing begins.

Since the ultimate purpose was the value of the story, the painting style and delineation of characters was not required to be finely etched.

It was only much later, when Kavads began to be seen as art pieces, that the painters put more effort into the quality of lines and coloring.

Satyanarayan’s wife assists him in the painting.

While he does the planning of the artwork and the outline of figures for the larger pieces, she helps in the color filling and finishing.

The final stage is the application of a coat of varnish.

Even in Bassi, there are only a few Suthars like Satyanarayan, who consider making Kavads a part of their sacred heritage, and are able to make a living by it.

Painting a temple for someone else’s home becomes part of their duty as their sacred heritage.

With changing lifestyles and cultural practices, many have gone into other related work.

Traditional products that are still used include Ram Rewari shrines and dolls used in the festival of Gangaur.

The marriage market is also important for the craft. Dolls and miniature idols considered auspicious are exchanged by the two families.

The Suthars of Bassi also make dolls and toys for the tourist market.

The craftsmen continue to use their combined skills of carpentry and painting to adapt to new opportunities in a changing world.

Read more about the traditions Kavad Art and Storytelling here:

- Show and Tell: Myths, Legends and Alphabets
- Kavad Art: The Quest for Recognition