Indian Art and Craft:
India is a land with huge abundance of raw materials spanning all price shelves. It’s collection range from Ivory, gems and marble on top of price hierarchy to the cheaper ones like clay, cane, bamboo and wood on the bottom. All these materials go through number of processes before coming up to their final implementation.
Over the years Indian handicraft has been recognized for their esthetical and functional values. India is a land of immense diversity and one can easily notice the influence of various factors on Indian art such as traditions, rituals, lifestyle etc. The art here has gradually evolved with evolution of civilization and experimentation of various techniques has led it towards its perfection.
Indian craft always remained in demand and the skills were transferred from one generation to other. As an inspiration nature served very important role and ideas were freely borrowed from it. Owing to its popularity it made influence on arts of Thailand, Cambodia, Myanmar, Japan and China.
Indian art expressed itself in many ways such as jewelry, painting, pottery, metalwork, textile, sculpture, etc and made its spread throughout Far East. Popular carving in Indian art included arches, domes, moon, sun, colored gemstones, tendrils, spiral and curvaceous lines, round figured women, etc.
The Early Times:
Remains have showed the artistic sense among people at early times and their liking towards art and crafts and history of art and craft has always been admired all over the world.
History of metal craft started its way back in 3000 B.C in India and paintings played an integral part. The times of Mohenjo-Daro included art in various forms such as square seals of ivory and faience with pictures of animals and pictographs, terra-cotta and faience representations of animals, alabaster and marble figures, copper model of cart, etc. Even the Mesopotamian work showed the similarity of work from times of Mohenjo-Daro which indicates inter-relationship of the two cultures and shows a possibility of common ancestry too. However the period of Vedic and later times showed no resemblance to these and included gold figurine of goddess. The times from 600 BC to later showed inclusion of finely polished and ornamented stone disks and coins with pictures of animals and religious symbols.