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Madhubani painting
Madhubani, or Mithila, painting is a style practised in the Mithila region of India and Nepal, named after the Madhubani district of Bihar.
Madhubani painting, schematic. Shapes are drawn for illustration.
What the sources say
| Point | Detail | Source |
|---|---|---|
| Traditional surface | Freshly plastered mud walls and floors; now also cloth, handmade paper and canvas | Wikipedia |
| Look | Eye-catching geometrical patterns; nature motifs such as sun, moon and the tulsi plant | Wikipedia |
| Base | A base coated with cow dung to protect against insects | Google Arts and Culture |
| Pigments | Natural sources include flowers and wild berries; the sources differ on the red | Google Arts and Culture, Wikipedia |
| Tools | Early tools were sticks (one Google Arts page says thin sticks wrapped with thread) rather than pens or brushes | Google Arts and Culture |
For wall art
We describe only the pattern language; pigment sources vary by artist and period, and the Mithila painting page is the same Wikipedia article, counted once.
Where the sources stop
Wikipedia names vermilion and mustard among the colours, while the Google Arts page says berries give red; pigments vary by artist and period.
Sources
- Wikipedia: Madhubani art (fetched 2026-11-12)
- Google Arts and Culture: preparing the canvas for Madhubani art (fetched 2026-11-12)
- Google Arts and Culture: the styles and possibilities of Madhubani art (fetched 2026-11-12)
Figures from these pages are paraphrased; each page was fetched and read on 2026-11-12. Where two sources differ, both are shown.