Patachitra is one of the earliest forms of popular art in Bangladesh it has a very long and prestigious history. Dating from the 12th century, and existing even today these pats or scroll paintings narrated stories based on religious or moral themes for the entertainment of the village folks. It started in Bengali culture from more than two thousand years back.
In earlier times it reflected various events and themes for their paintings from the Mahabharata, Ramayana, various legends, myths and religious stories , and later expanded the range by including many popular and secular stories of the land.
One of the most popular themes of the ‘patachitra’ was the Gazi’s Pat depicting the courageous deeds and conquests of Ismail Gazi, a Muslim general who served the Sultan Barbak in the 15th century.
Patachitra, like many other popular folk art of Bengal such as pottery, the weaving of the Muslin and Jamdani, and jatra, was practised in families through generation after generation.
The old folklore tells the story of Gazi Pir, a mythical warrior saint who battled demons, confronted the god of death, and worked miracles like restoring dead trees to full bloom, and getting dried-up cows to milk again. These and more such fantastic and colourful fables and legends have been immortalised through pat gaans and patchitra.
The tales of Ramayana, Mahabharata, Muharram, Rass lilla, Monosha Mongol, Sri Krishna and Gazi pir usually being the subject matter of these folk paintings that narrate their stories frame by frame. The patuas or pat artists supplemented their illustrations with pat gaans or music ballads.
Some famous patuas are Sudhir Acharya and his son Shambhu Acharya, Raghunath, they still want to carry out the earliest Patachitra in their work.
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