The Ancient Art of Hand-block Printing from Jaipur, India

Some traditions are universal. Here, we highlight a single craft — and how it’s being adapted, rethought and remade for the 21st century.

Craft Name: Hand Block-Printing
Origin of Craft: Bagru, Rajasthan, India
History: at least 300years old

From left: a depiction of dyers from a mid-19th-century painting; madder- and indigo-dyed fabrics hang on branches at the family workshop of Suraj Narain Titanwala in Bagru, Rajasthan. Titanwala works to preserve symbolic patterns that have been made in his village for hundreds of years (and are sold only locally). It is difficult to find printers willing to do this work, as the intricate designs are more labour-intensive, requiring smaller blocks and more stamping than larger patterns. Credit...From left: © Ashmolean Museum, University of Oxford/Heritage/The Image Works; Abhishek Bali

Building the Block

The wooden blocks used to print the patterns onto the Cotton sheets are made by hand. Using minimum tools like a small hammer and chisel.

When an artisan creates a print, he carefully considers how it can be divided into a series of blocks, each element or colour contributing to the overall design like pieces of a jigsaw puzzle.

For a Single Design:

4-16 wooden blocks may be used together.

45 days to visualize into blocks.

10 days of precise hand-pressed printing may bring a customized Bedsheet to life.

Craft Story

Bagru, in Rajasthan, is still considered a village (population of 30,000) — and in the ancient way its society is structured according to inherited roles and customs.

India’s caste system is less apparent in cities. However, villages like this still operate according to it: Chippa, for instance, derives from a conflation of the Nepali language chhi (to dye) and pa (to leave something to bask in the sun) and chappana (“stamping” in Hindi); it also denotes one’s caste, one’s job, and is often also one’s last name.

Daily Activity:

Hereditary carvers, mostly fathers and sons, squat inside tiny open studios, chiselling designs traced onto teak. In the centre of town, families of printers stand before long tables covered with fabric, dipping blocks into colour and stamping them with a thump thump of the hand to ensure a strong print on the fabric.

*Dabu* artisan Ranjeet at his work. Kind enough to pose for our Newsletter

A grouping of Wooden blocks chiseled by special carvers, in traditional designs

Each morning, the dabu printers, another specialized group, mix a batch of mud made from clay, lime and fermented wheat and sift it with their bare feet through muslin so their wives, and perhaps their children, can print it in patterns onto fabric before bringing it over to the indigo vats, operated by the men of yet another historical caste. Even the washing is done by a particular group, the dhobi, who stand all day waist-deep in water baths. All these activities, each part of the multistep process, centre around a vast field, where fabrics — in indigo, madder, saffron and hot pink — are laid out to dry or hung from the rooftops of the surrounding buildings.