Themes of Fertility, Love and Nature in Mithila Art

The ponds of Mithila overflow with life; lotuses, turtles, fish, snakes, all find a home here where they can magically multiply. The fertility on display is so abundant that over the centuries the Maithili women have created a visual language using the plants and animals of the pond as a good luck charm wishing you the fertility and abundance of the ponds.

If you want to understand the meaning of Mithila art, you must start with fertility[1]. It was upper caste women who developed the art form centuries ago as decorations for the walls of the wedding chamber where the bride and groom, two strangers at this point thanks to an arranged marriage, would spend their first night together.  

Life for an upper caste woman in this part of India was, and for some still is, a sequestered life where you receive very little education, are not allowed to work, and are rarely allowed to leave the family compound. In this domain, your purpose as a woman was to continue the patrilineal family line; have lots of babies, preferably male.

Fertility and hopes for a good husband loomed large for these women and so the images they would put on the walls of the wedding chamber alternated between totems of fertility, such as the flora and fauna of the ponds, images of love and feminine power in the form of Hindu gods and goddesses, and a little dose of magic too with images that hoped to cast a spell on the groom so that he would be malleable to his wife’s wishes.  

The portrayal of famous couples from Hindu religious texts and epic poems was intended to inspire idealized and divine love. Shiva (god of destruction and regeneration) and Parvati (goddess of devotion, motherhood, fertility) represent the interdependence and union of feminine and masculine energies. Rama and Sita from the Ramayana epic or the god Krishna and the cowherdess Radha have stories that highlight romantic love. And finally, the goddess Durga who is associated with protection, strength and motherhood and the goddess Kali who is a fierce demon defeating warrior embody feminine power. 

As the art moved from walls to paper (see A History of Mithila Art), these themes remained and were expanded on due to the influence of lower caste women who became artists in the genre at this time and who concentrated on themes of daily life and nature. The lower caste women had to be especially creative in their approach to the art because of laws forbidding their caste from portraying Hindu gods.

Today Mithila art still abounds with the symbols of fertility, love, and nature, beautifully preserving the traditions and culture of the region. But as the art transitions from folk tradition to fine art, a new generation of artist is choosing to address more political themes and innovating by showing contemporary scenes but done using the ancient style.

[1] Carolyn Henning Brown, Contested Meanings: Tantra and the Poetics of Mithila Art; American Ethnologist 23(4):pp717-737, 1996