TERRACOTTA

Terracotta is the unglazed red pottery traditional to Bengal. A variety of items, ranging from planters to figurines, are made with clay by rural potters either on the wheel or by hand and baked  in winnow-shaped brick kilns using local firewood, twigs etc.

The terracotta Bankura horse of Bengal is quite famous all over the world. Visit any village in this state and you are bound to find the kumbhakars (potters) creating items of daily use on the potter’s wheel. The source of their raw material is the rich, alluvial clay found in Bengal’s rivers. These are shaped and fired in simple kilns. From pots, containers, plates for food to toys and ritual figurines, the Bengal potter moulds it all.

At Kumartuli in Kolkata, some of Bengal’s most innovative clay-potters fashion the images of popular gods and goddesses worshipped in the state. The high point comes when in autumn every year, idols of goddess Durga are made. Some of them are indeed exquisite works of art. Today, some renowned sculptors are also commissioned by Bengali non-resident Indians (NRIs) to produce replicas of Goddess Durga, which they carry with them all the way to the USA and England! If you look at the rich decorative terracotta panels of temples in Murshidabad, Bishnupur, and Midnapore, you will realise how much a fistful of clay means to the Bengali’s artistic psyche.