Kaavi art

Kaavi art (Kaavi Kalé) is the mural tradition of India's Konkan coast - Goa, coastal Karnataka, and Maharashtra - practiced on the walls of temples, churches, mosques, Jain basadis, shrines, and old houses. Its signature is a strict two-tone scheme: a white lime-plaster ground carrying designs in a single reddish-brown pigment, kaav, ground from local laterite soil. Rather than painting the dark color on, the mason incises it - the design is cut through the red layer to reveal the white beneath, in the manner of European sgraffito. Believed to have arrived some four to six centuries ago with Saraswat communities, it was built for a monsoon climate where painted murals decay quickly. Motifs run from floral medallions and geometric borders to deities and scenes of daily life. Nearly extinct by the late twentieth century, the art is now being documented and revived.

Defining characteristics

• Strict two-tone palette: laterite red-oxide on snow-white lime plaster
• Design incised with steel bodkins (kanta) to expose the white ground - sgraffito-like
• Floral medallions, geometric borders of spirals and semi-circles, and mythological figures
• Adorns sacred and secular buildings alike: temples, churches, mosques, Jain basadis, houses
• Stencils of pin-pricked paper, rulers, and compasses used for large and geometric motifs
• Finished surfaces misted and polished with river pebbles for monsoon durability

Key figures

• Anonymous Kaavi masons (traditional) — Hereditary masons who incise the murals freehand; the tradition was never signed

Example works

• Kaavi murals, Lakshmi Narayan Mahamaya temple, Ankola — Anonymous Kaavi masons (n.d.)
• Kaavi murals of temple and house walls, Honavar and Kumta — Anonymous Kaavi masons (n.d.)

Sources

• Kaavi art - Wikipedia encyclopedia

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