- Kalamkari is a type of hand-painted or block-printed cotton textile produced in Isfahan, Iran, and in the Indian state of Andhra Pradesh.
- Only natural dyes are used in Kalamkari, which involves twenty-three steps
- To create design contours, artists use a bamboo or date palm stickpointed at one end with a bundle of fine hair attached to this pointed end to serve as the brush or pen
- There are two distinctive styles of Kalamkari art in India – Srikalahasti styleand the Machilipatnam style.
- This style flourished in temples centered on creating unique religious identities, appearing on scrolls, temple hangings, chariot banners as well as depictions of deities and scenes taken from the Hindu epics (e.g. Ramayana, Mahabharata and Purana).
- The style owes its present status to Kamaladevi Chattopadhyay who popularized the art as the first chairperson of the All India Handicrafts Board.
Figure: An example of Kalamkari painting