Kantha of bengal

The traditional folk art of Bengal is famous as Kantha which means ‘Patched Cloth’, and the special significance of kantha is quilting. The Dacca muslin saris of gray, black or white coloured, are one of the most artistic and beautiful specimens of Handloom textiles, were considered as very valuable by the women folk of Bengal. There are two types of embroideries. In the first type, the old and discarded cotton saris or dothis were piled up on the top of each other, quilted and embroidered. And the other type was quilted by using the discarded cotton bed spreads and the pictorial embroidery was done with Tussar silk threads.

Kantha stands as a model for skilled certainty. Because this fantastic embroidered piece is revived by utilising the worn-out textiles, literally rags that would have been normally thrown away.

It is a treasured art of every door where in, the Bengali ladies irrespective of their castes, classes and socio-economic groups, are expertise. The embroidery not only depicts the stitches employed but it also expresses the outflow of their creative, resourceful, imaginary, patient craftsmanship.

The size and thickness of Kantha varied according to its type. The layers of pieces are sewn together by simple darning stitch in white thread, drawn from the old sari borders. The design is first traced and the filling is done by coloured threads, taken from the coloured borders of saris.

Kanthas were produced in Hugli, Patna, Satagon, Jessore, Faridpur, Khulna and other parts of East and West Bengal. The Kantha of each individual is unique by itself. Because its always her own creation, idea, innovation, taste of fancies, and art of executing new fresh forms, designs, figures and motifs. It is the traditional art greatly encouraged by the family and therefore no scope for imitation. Though the ideas, themes, scenes and symbols are almost common as they come from similar ecological background, there is wide variation in the structural and decorative arrangement of the designs, composition of motifs combination of figures and colour scheme, technique and presentation varied from woman to woman, However, some basic traditional designs are commonly seen in each piece of their work.

The Needle work is done by original darning stitch along with satin and loop stitches. There are two modes of working. In the first style, the embroidery starts from the centre and ends by outlining the motif or vice versa. However, the embroidery gives rich textural effects by adding traditional colours like black, deep blue and red, which symbolise the nature, earth, sky and space respectively.

The motifs used in kantha embroidery has a great influence of Portuguese and European traditions. The first factory in India was started at Patna during the year 1920. Dr. Stella Karamrisch writes that kantha was first manufactured in 1875. The motifs are composed of heterogeneous objects like various types of lotus flowers, Mandala, Satadala padma, trees, creepers, foliages, floral scrolls, kalkas, animal figures, human figures, spirals, whirls, birds, fish, boats, submarine sceneries, ships, pitcher, mermaids, various sea monsters, comb, mirror, nut cracker, umbrella, chariot, palanquins etc.