Saura painting

also: Sora painting · Ikons · Ekons · Italons

tradition style Undated tradition, ongoing Odisha India

Saura painting is a mural tradition of the Sora (Saura) people, an Adivasi community of southern Odisha, India. Known locally as ikons (also ekons or italons), these paintings are dedicated to Idital, the Sora's main deity, and were traditionally painted on the mud walls of adobe huts by Kudangs, the priestly class who could also explain their symbolism. Built up on red or yellow ochre grounds with pigments of white stone, vermilion and plant extracts, the panels mirror daily life and folklore in dense, symbolic images. Ikons accompany births, harvests, marriages and the building of a new house. Resembling Warli painting in their stick-figure geometry, Saura works are painted from the border inward and treat figures more softly, without sharp delineation.

Idital- Soura Painting
Idital- Soura PaintingCC BY-SA 3.0 (credit: Hpsatapathy) · source

Defining characteristics

  • Fish-net construction: the scene is painted from the border inward
  • Red or yellow ochre ground painted over with white stone, vermilion, and earth pigments
  • Human, animal, and plant forms reduced to simple geometric stick figures
  • Recurring motifs: people, horses, elephants, the sun and moon, the tree of life
  • Figures loosely delineated, without the sharp outlines or male/female distinction of Warli painting
  • Dense symbolic panels mirroring the quotidian chores and folklore of Sora life

Key figures

  • Verrier Elwin (1902-1964) — Anthropologist who first studied the ikons outside the Sora community

Example works

  • Idital ikon (wall painting) — Kudang painter of the Sora community (undated (traditional))

Sources

← Back to the catalog