Bharni — from bharnā, “to fill” — is the colour-saturated face of Madhubani painting. Figures are first outlined in firm black and then flooded with bright natural pigments: vermilion red, turmeric yellow, indigo, leaf-green. Traditionally the style of Brahmin women and strongly associated with the village of Jitwarpur, Bharni favours gods and goddesses, Radha and Krishna, and auspicious symbols of fertility and prosperity.
It was Bharni, in the hands of artists like Sita Devi, that first carried Mithila painting from mud walls onto paper in the 1960s and out into the world’s galleries. Its glowing, densely-filled surfaces — leaving no empty space — are what most people picture when they think of Madhubani art.