Art And Handicrafts

Haryana Arts and Crafts include a variety of style and flair. These works of art reflect the rich cultural heritage of Haryana. The famous Haryana Arts and Crafts are known all over the country for their splendid aesthetic values.

Haryana Arts and Crafts mainly include Pottery, Embroidery and Weaving, Phulkari, Chope, Durries Bagh and Paintings. Most of these are essentially village handicrafts. The Villages of Haryana are most famous for their woven works. The Haryana Shawl, an offshoot of the Kashmiri style of work, is a magnificent piece of art. Bright and brilliant colors form an essential part of the Arts and Crafts of Haryana.

The pots made in the villages of Haryana are brightly painted and designed intricately. This makes them appear very attractive. While the men make the earthen article the patterns on them are generally painted by some woman member of the family. Phulkari of Haryana is essentially a rural craft and in made by the women members. The Bagh is a bit different from the Phulkari and in this case the base cloth is completely covered with embroidery. Another kind of shawl made by the people here is the Chope.

Haryana Arts and Crafts are one of the major mode of income for the rural people of the state. Thus they play an important role in governing the economy of the state of Haryana.

Pottery

Pottery is essentially a village craft, and Haryana is essentially a village state. The potter’s wheel, dating back to pre-Aryan times, is the most common feature of any village in India.

Although numerous kinds of wheels are used throughout India, in Haryana the kick-operated type is common. With this contraption you don’t use your hands to turn the wheel as in normal cases; on the other hand, you use your foot. The actual wheel may be either of cement or stone.

The material for making earthen articles comes cheap, and from the earth itself. While the potter works on the wheel, he has a helper (usually his son or a relative) mixing clay, while a woman (his wife or a sister) makes intricate designs into the finished vessel or toy.

From utensils to toys to decorative pieces, clay forms the most essential ingredient on which the potter literally survives. Seasonal festivals call for the potter to get cracking – he has to make hundreds of toys like miniature cows, horses, people, houses and sepoys which are then sold in brightly decorated stalls along dusty lanes.

Painting

Haryana was always a rendezvous for various tribes, invaders, races, cultures and faiths, going right back to BC 2500, and it witnessed the merging of numerous styles of painting. Discoveries of earthenware and designs painted on them in black and white found Siswal site are the first impressions of art in this state. Mitathal and Banawali sites have also revealed that art did exist here, but definitely on a much smaller scale than that of the Deccan and southern India. The drawings are mainly in horizontal and vertical lines, with a little more creativity allotted to floral art. During Harshvardhana's reign art and painting received special attention for some time, as the king himself was a painter of sorts. The walls of the palace of Maharaja Tej Singh in Mirpur in Gurgaon are adorned with paintings, following the Rajput pattern. The patterns on the walls express scenes from the Ramayana.