What is Kinnala art?
The image above shows Lord Krishna and Rukmini playing a game of dice. Notice the rich colours of Rukmini saree, the elegant style of Rukmini and the grace of Krishna. Bright colours in these dolls make the entire setting colourful isn’t it? This is Kinnala art. An artwork from Karnataka that proudly has a GI tag.
GI means geographical indicator that acts just like a patent. The Kinnala art is from a village Kinnala of Koppal district in Karnataka that has got this GI tag. India has over 650 registered Geographical Indication (GI) tags, while Karnataka boasts of 48 registered Geographical Indication (GI) products alone. Kinnala art is one of them.
Kinnala artwork
The image above shows a couple with the woman holding the traditional turmeric and vermillion for the ladies. It is a typical village scene, mainly a Hindu household that offers these sacred colours to a married woman and gets her blessings.
Kinnala art thus depicts daily life. It depicts religious deities , mythological characters (Ramayana, Mahabharata, etc.), animals, birds, natural objects, fruit/vegetable replicas, decorative items like picture frames, mirror-frames, trays, etc. Unlike Channapatna toys , these are majority religious pieces used for sculpting gods or as golu dolls for Navaratri.
Ancient Kinnala art:
The image shows Devi seated on the Nandi. With Trishul in one hand, lotus in other and her right hand in Abhaya mudra she is the very picture of bliss.
The theme of Kinnala art is mostly religious. Kinnala is a village near Hampi. Tradition says that Kinnala art was given patronage by Vijayanagara Kings. So it is as old as 15th century. The painters and sculptors were responsible for Hampi paintings, temple art and even sculpted at Badami. The artisans worked for royal palaces and temples.
Kinhal artisans are believed to descend from those lineage. So the theme they work on mostly represent the religious art and are used in story telling and festival displays like Golu dolls.
Kinnala art process
Here the image shows a man-woman typically in the North Karnataka attire. Made from the wood of Bombax Cotton , the wood is seasoned well in sun and shade before use. The wood is light, hence handcrafted with very little tools. Each piece has to be cut and then joined together with a mix of tamarind paste and stone powder. Sawdust, jute rags, cloth is also used for additional support.
Ornamentation is embossed with stone powder and liquid gum. After preparing the surface, the figure is handprinted mostly with natural colours and some with synthetic colours too. Bright colours like red, yellow, green are used often.
Kinnala doll display at Dhaatu
In this image Agni and Indra-the direction gods have been sculpted. The figures are colourful and very well fit festival and cultural themes. This year , Dhattu Puppets in Bangalore displayed these dolls for retelling scenes from Ramayana, & Mahabharata. There were displays of village men and women, Rukmini,Krishna, Dashavatara etc.
The dolls inside the gallery of Dhattu also showcased the putrakameshi scene with Agni coming out holding the porridge, Rishis performing the Pooja and King Dasharatha and his wives seated, participating in the proceedings. Huge kinnala dolls also showed Rishi Shringya being brought in a boat to Ayodhya. The scene was no less mesmeric than going to a theatre.