The Storytelling of Art: How Mythology Found Its Colors

Intricate Pattachitra artwork depicting various episodes from Krishna's life, surrounded by vibrant scenes capturing key moments of his divine narrative.

Long before books arrived in every home, and even longer before screens, India told its stories in color.

It’s easy to forget, but in most villages, not everyone could read. Yet everyone knew the story of Rama and Sita, of Krishna and his flute, of the churning of the cosmic ocean. How? Because the walls remembered. The scrolls remembered. The hands of painters remembered.

Pattachitra artists from Odisha unfurled their cloth scrolls like stage curtains, each frame a frozen scene from the great epics. But the show wasn’t silent — the artists sang as they revealed each section, turning the scroll into a living performance. The gods, with their large lotus eyes and arched brows, stared right back, as if daring you to forget them.

In Bihar’s Mithila region, Madhubani painters didn’t need a stage. Their courtyards became canvases during festivals and weddings. The Ramayana sprawled across walls, Sita always depicted with grace, trees blossoming in delicate symmetry around her. It wasn’t just storytelling — it was devotion in motion.

Then there’s Kalamkari, from Andhra Pradesh and Telangana, where the brush tip carries both ink and story. Using natural dyes and a bamboo pen, artisans narrate tales from the Mahabharata and Puranas — often in long panels that stretch like an unbroken sentence of images. Every swirl, every motif, is a word in a language that predates scripts.

These aren’t just paintings. They’re cultural hard drives — storing myths, morals, genealogies, cosmic secrets — all in pigment and line. They remind us that stories aren’t just told to pass time; they’re told to pass time down.

Even today, when a Pattachitra hangs on a wall or a Kalamkari panel drapes a doorway, it carries the weight of every retelling before it. Sure, you could read the stories in a book or binge a TV adaptation — but here, the stories breathe. They wear colors. They stretch and fold with the cloth, reminding you that myths aren’t static. They’re alive as long as we keep them visible.

Maybe that’s why these art forms endure. Because they don’t just decorate. They narrate. And they know that sometimes, the best stories are the ones that don’t need words at all.