Traditional artists of Puri create contemporary scenes of the pilgrim city in their yatri pata paintings. Pictures by Sarat Patra

Bhubaneswar, March 19: The landscape and lifestyle of Puri as it was hundreds of years ago comes alive through various yatri pata paintings that have been preserved in museums across the world.

But, the art form is in a doomed state. A workshop — Painted Heritage of Puri: The Contemporary Context — was organised in Puri to revive the yatri pata art. Hosted by the Lalit Kala Akademi, regional centre, Bhubaneswar, the weeklong workshop concluded last evening.

Twelve traditional artists and painters from around Puri gathered at Paura Sadan in the city. On the first day, they were shown the unique yatri pata paintings that are centuries old and well preserved in museums.

“We were explained about the elements of this form of heritage painting. We saw the sankha nabhi painting that depicted the intricate details of the Jagannath temple complex as well as the significant events, traditions and places in Puri. This 18th century collection from the National Museum in Copenhagen helped us understand the authentic yatri pata,” said Bharat Maharana, a participant artist.

Purna Chandra Mohapatra, senior artist and art historian Dinanath Pathy, secretary of the host akademi Ramahari Jena guided them. Veteran traditional painters Harihar Maharana also helped the artists.

Pilgrims and tourists often collected yatri pata paintings during their visit to Puri. These served as postcards giving a view of the city, the temple and the life and culture of Puri.

But over the past century, the emergence of photography and lack of encouragement led to decline of yatri pata painting, and now, all professionals of this art are deceased. Hence, the akademi tried to train and create yatri pata painters.

“It was amazing how quickly these painters understood the concept after the first day interaction. During rest of the week, they created brilliant works that depicted the contemporary Puri with major temples and monuments and even bus stands, train and helicopters just like in the ancient days the artists depicted transportation to the city with images of horses, boats and so on,” said Jena. Traditionally, the yatri paintings used colours that are seen on the three idols of the Puri temple — Balabhadra, Subhadra and Jagannath. At the workshop, too, natural colours in the same shades of yellow, black, red and blue were used.

The works were created by local traditional artists, including Ananta Maharana, who creates the anasar patti paintings every year that are worshipped at the Jagannath temple during the hibernation of the deities before rath yatra.

All the fresh yatri pata paintings created on 3x4sqft canvas would shortly be stitched together to create a huge collage of a contemporary yatri painting.

Famous London-based Odia painter and writer Prafulla Mohanti met the artists on the concluding evening.