- Pattachitra is the pioneer/earliest indigenous painting style of Orissa (said to date back to the pre-historic times).
- Earlier, a Pattachitra chitrakar (artists) abstained from women and liquor until he completed his painting.
- It was dying for want of patronage by the 1950s, when Halina Zaely, a Polish-American lady resuscitated it by supporting the artists.
- Interestingly, the chitrakar essentially begins painting his pattachitra with white colour and ends with white too...eyeballs of the figures being the last to be painted.
- Even now, the finer brushes used by these chitrakaras are made with 5-6 mouse hair each.
View some Pattachitra paintings here