Style combination · Contrasts

Kalighat Pat × Mithila Painting

Both are eastern Indian popular pictures of deities, but Kalighat sweeps a few brushed figures across an empty sheet while Mithila outlines everything and fills every gap; set them side by side to show sparse brush against dense line.

From the research on Mithila (Madhubani) Painting

Mix them and make something Kalighat Pat Mithila Painting

A sample layout drawn from the recipe: shapes from Mithila Painting, their arrangement from Kalighat Pat, the finish from Kalighat Pat. Not a real work, and not an image of either style.

What each style brings

Each part of the design comes from the style with the stronger say in it, and each style gives at least two.

Kalighat Pat & Battala Bazaar Prints Mithila (Madhubani) Painting

Type from Kalighat Pat
Colour from Mithila Painting: Full polychrome
Flat fields
Form from Mithila Painting: Stylised figuration
Abundant decoration

Kalighat Pat avoids abundant decoration: this is where the two pull against each other, which is the point of the contrast.
Composition from Kalighat Pat: Isolated object
Single focal point
Surface from Kalighat Pat: Painterly brushwork
Carved line

The type

Open fonts standing in for each style’s own type, which is often hand-drawn or commercial.

Display · Kalighat Pat

Square

Rozha One, standing in for Bengali captions cut into Battala woodblocks

Text · Mithila Painting

Women's ritual wall and floor painting from Mithila in north Bihar and Nepal's Terai, attested from at least the 14th century, seen by W. G. Archer after the 1934 earthquake and photographed in 1940, and moved to paper for sale in the 1966–67 drought. Line comes first: figures and borders are drawn, often as double outlines, then filled with flat colour (bharni), fine hatching (kachni) or tattoo-derived rings (godna) until no ground is left empty. Wedding-chamber kohbar images, deities, epics and, later, village life and world events fill sheets closed by border bands.

Fira Sans; Mithila Painting used Hand-written artist's names, villages and occasional titles in Devanagari or Latin script, added with the outlining nib along a margin or inside the border band and For accompanying Hindi or Maithili text in graphic work, a sturdy even-stroke Devanagari text face (for example Mukta or Hind) set outside the bordered painting rather than over its filled ground

The colours

The ground and leading colours come from Mithila Painting, with a counter-accent from Kalighat Pat. The ink reads on the ground at 4.5:1 or more.

Kalighat Pat & Battala Bazaar Prints Mithila (Madhubani) Painting

#f1e6cc ground · 36%
#1a1714 ink · 14%
#e9b21b accent · 18%
#c8281e accent · 14%
#d8457f accent · 10%
#26408b accent · 8%

As CSS

:root {
  --ground: #f1e6cc;
  --ink: #1a1714;
  --accent-1: #e9b21b;
  --accent-2: #c8281e;
  --accent-3: #d8457f;
  --accent-4: #26408b;
  --font-display: "Rozha One", serif;
  --font-text: "Fira Sans", sans-serif;
}

Use it with care

Kalighat Pat & Battala Bazaar Prints: Many sheets depict Hindu deities that are still worshipped (Kali, Durga, Lakshmi, Krishna), and some were painted for Muslim patrons (Duldul, Imam Husain's horse), so do not distort, crop or place these figures in mocking or disposable contexts. The patua (chitrakar) families of Bengal still practise the art; commission or credit living painters rather than tracing museum images, and name the artist where known.

Mithila (Madhubani) Painting: Mithila painting is the living craft and livelihood of named painters, mostly women, across many castes in Madhubani district and southern Nepal, and 'Madhubani paintings' is a registered Geographical Indication of Bihar (2006–07): do not label machine-printed, traced or AI-generated images as Madhubani or Mithila painting, never add a painter's name or signature to generated work, and commission, buy from or credit painters by name instead. Kohbar and aripana images are made for marriages, births and other rites and many sheets show Hindu deities still worshipped, so do not crop, distort or put them on disposable or demeaning goods. Godna painting and the figure of Raja Salhesh belong to the Dalit Dusadh community's history of claiming a place their painting was once denied; do not treat them as generic tribal pattern or erase whose tradition they are. Godna painting also draws on the tattoo art of Nat (Natin) women; credit that source too. Use 'Mithila painting' as the inclusive name: 'Madhubani' is the Bihar GI name, so do not label work by Maithil painters in Nepal, such as those of Janakpur, as Madhubani or Indian.

The two styles

1830–1930 · South Asia Kalighat Pat & Battala Bazaar Prints The bazaar art of nineteenth-century Calcutta: watercolours sold to pilgrims by patua painters at the Kalighat temple, and the cheap woodcuts and metal engravings that Battala presses printed for chapbooks and almanacs. A single plaque-like figure stands on unpainted paper, drawn with one loaded, sweeping brushstroke that both outlines and shades it. Deities share the repertoire with satire of the Westernised babu, domestic scandal and street life.

An intricately patterned folk-art-style poster shows a flowering tree beneath a large sun with a face, surrounded by birds, deer, and two women holding potted plants. A central yellow emblem reads “CLEAN EARTH,” and decorative borders contain fish, flowers, and geometric motifs.

c. 1350–present · South Asia Mithila (Madhubani) Painting Women's ritual wall and floor painting from Mithila in north Bihar and Nepal's Terai, attested from at least the 14th century, seen by W. G. Archer after the 1934 earthquake and photographed in 1940, and moved to paper for sale in the 1966–67 drought. Line comes first: figures and borders are drawn, often as double outlines, then filled with flat colour (bharni), fine hatching (kachni) or tattoo-derived rings (godna) until no ground is left empty. Wedding-chamber kohbar images, deities, epics and, later, village life and world events fill sheets closed by border bands.