Motifs of Phulakri

 Now let take you through the motifs of phulkari.

The women of rural Punjab used motifs from their household articles and their natural surroundings. On the Phulkari and Bagh, women depicted these articles and used the “darning stitch” for complicated designs. The  women also created designs from their own imagination, feelings and emotions as well as inspiration from nature.

    A. The geometric motifs:  For making Bagh, geometrical motifs were used such as triangles, squares and vertical and horizontal lines with changing directions and the darn stitch with various color combinations. The subject matter of Phulkari comprised of flowers, animals and human forms and many other things made with geometrical patterns as shown in fig. 1.

B  The vegetables, fruits and floral motifs:  Nature provides many motifs for creating art. As the name Phulkari suggests ‘growing flower’, many floral motifs were created by women from their own imagination as shown in fig. 2. Genda (marigold), Surajmukhi (sun flower), Motia (jasmine) and Kol (lotus flower) were commonly used for Phulkari and Bagh.  Sometimes, the field of phulkari was embroidered with small patterns called “Butian”. Among the different fruits, santaran (orange), anar (pomegranate), nakh (pear), bhut (muskmelon), mango slice, and chhuare (dried dates) were used  as motifs for a Phulkari. Among the vegetables, women used replicas of karela (bitter guard), gobhi (cauliflower), mirchi (Chili) and dhaniya (coriander)

C. The birds and animal motifs:   Bird and animal motifs were also on Phulkari. In a “sainchi phulkari”, human forms, animals and birds were used. The most common animal motifs are the cow, buffalo, goat, camel, horse, elephant, snake, fish, tortoise, pig, rabbit, frog, cat, rat, donkey, squirrel and lion. Among the bird motifs, the peacock, parrot, sparrow, crow, owl, hen, and pigeon were the most popular

D. The household articles:  Articles from the kitchen were also used as motifs. These included the velana (rolling pin), gadava (brass urn) half filled with water, and ghara (pitcher) etc.

 E. Jewelry motifs:  Women of Punjab often used jewelry articles as motifs for embroidering Phulkari as shown in fig. 4. They used items like the necklace, Kangan, Karanphool and Jhumka, different types of earrings, guluband different types of bracelets, nose rings, Tikka, Shingar Patti, Phools, and Rani Har with a pendant. All these articles were embroidered in a yellow colored thread to show they were made of gold.

F. Miscellaneous articles: Other Phulkari motifs were taken from rural life, - For example, Shalimar, Charbagh and Chaurasia Bagh depict the Mughals and other gardens. Bagh that was embroidered with a red and yellow colored flower was called Asharfi (mohur or gold coin) Bagh. “Ike” (ace of diamond design) came from playing cards. There were Dhoop Chhaon (sun light and shade), Lahriya (waves), Patedar (stripes), Chand (moon), Patang (kite), Saru (cypress tree), Pachranga (five coloured), Satranga (seven coloured), Dariya (river) and Shisha (mirror) patterns as well.