Visual art is used as a language to communicate emotions and thoughts. The visual language may vary from culture to culture, but there may be some commonalities among different cultures in terms of the usage of different visual signs and symbols. This study particularly focuses on the visual languages of different communities in India. In India, there are many communities that belong to remote areas and have their own visual language. Such communities have fewer possibilities to experience cultural exchange with the mainstream population. It naturally makes the community distinctive. To explore the commonalities and differences of the visual language (encoded through different signs and symbols), this study focused on some important art traditions in India and conducted semiotic analysis of the different distinctive art traditions, which covered (1) Gond art of Madhya Pradesh, (2) Rickshaw art of Uttar Pradesh, (3) Patachitra of West Bengal (4) Chilika fishing community’s art of Odisha, and (5) Khovar and Sohrai art of Jharkhand. The findings revealed that despite of the different location and diversity in culture of these communities, some significant commonalities exist in visual languages, which are mainly driven by survival concern, cultural praxis, religious belief, rituals and natural environment. Furthermore, it revealed that iconic and symbolic representational approaches are frequently used through different forms among these five traditions, as well as the artists of these art traditions are more familiar with figurative representations rather than abstract images. This study will help visual art researchers to decode and understand the visual language of the significant art traditions of India.

Keywords: Art; Communication; Commonality; Culture; Tradition; Visual language