A journey into pictorial space: Poetics of frame and field in Maithil painting

Abstract

This article explores the ways in which Maithil painting is constituted in a plurality of contexts. Even though the painting is ephemeral on ceremonial occasions, the women artists take great care in composing it. Its formal structure always emphasises the dominance of the centre occupied by the vermilion dot around which the core motif (such as the lotus plant) is organised. As an ambulant object made for nobody in particular and at home everywhere, Maithil painting embodies a notion of portability and permanency during the commodity phase, which influences its formal structure in significant ways. For the first time the picto rial border is introduced to the painting. Along with new pictorial surfaces, colours and tools, the border has important implications for the organisation of the pictorial field. However, the concern for authenticity and meaning has led most scholars to overlook the complexities involved in the making of the painting, particularly such basic issues as frame and field, and foreground and background relationships. This article also tries to show that, despite these changes in the formal attributes of Maithil painting, the compositional structure continues to emphasise the dominance of centric tendencies within the pictorial field.