India lives in many centuries. Discover the majesty and sweep of India’s rich cultural and historical heritage, replete with the people, events and places that have contributed to the chequered mosaic of India’s past. Featured in this exquisite book are rare and never-seen-before vintage photographs from some of the finest collections across the world – in the section India Then. The vibrant and ever-changing cultural landscape of India is featured in a series of photographs, showcasing the multifaceted, kaleidoscopic present. The timeless past lives amidst fast-paced, cutting-edge change. Modernity and tradition co-exist in the most endearing and surprising of places. India Now is a visual feast of contemporary India.
“It’s a fascinating journey, and with pages featuring brilliant images of rubies, emeralds, and Jaipur enamel work, it’s a true feast for the eyes.” — Natural Diamonds
Inspired by India is an exploration of more than six centuries of trade, cultural exchange, and inspiration between India and the West. Through the lens of various material categories, including textiles, fashion, jewellery, and perfume, marvellous stories unfold surrounding the histories of objects and the complex networks of cultural exchange they represent. The book explores how some of the most legendary design houses have looked to Indian culture, decorative arts and artisanal crafts for inspiration. Indian-inspired objects from luxury houses including Hermès, Chanel, Cartier, and Dior are featured, revealing creative and fascinating stories of inspiration and creativity.
The stunning Inspired by India also includes rich visual imagery from leading museum and gallery archives, as well as the archives of the world’s greatest luxury houses and renowned fashion designers, including Dries Van Noten, Alexander McQueen, and John Galliano.
We are constantly surrounded by objects, by ‘things’ that channel and dictate our everyday life, ‘things’ that we take for granted. But these objects speak to us, and speak about us. They have a story to tell that reflects our values and aspirations, our achievements and dreams, and reveal more about us than we realize! This richly illustrated book focuses on 100 objects to tell a story of India that unravels in a series of thematic sections that allow the objects to take center-stage. The stories that some objects tell will be new to readers; at other times, the objects themselves may be familiar but the story they tell may not be obvious. The 100 objects shed light on the varying priorities and the differing strands of achievement that arose over time to create the rich multi-cultural medley that is today’s India.
The buildings erected in the Deccan region of India belonged to a number of pre-Mughal kingdoms that reigned in the Deccan from the middle of the 14th century onwards. The monuments testify to a culture where local and imported ideas, vernacular and pan-Islamic traditions fused and re-interpreted, to create a majestic architectural heritage with exceptional buildings on the edge of the Islamic world. Many are still standing – yet outside this region of peninsular India, they remain largely unknown. General publications on Indian Islamic architecture usually devote a single chapter to the Deccan. Even specialist monographs can only cover a portion of the region, due to the sheer number of sites. While it is impossible to encompass the full breadth of the subject in a single volume, this book aims to embrace the visual diversity of the Deccan without sacrificing the rigor of academic study. Structures of historical or architectural significance are placed in their context, as the authors discuss building typologies, civic facilities and ornamental techniques, from plaster and carved stone to glazed tiles and mural painting. A chapter is dedicated to each principal Deccan site, interweaving the rise and fall of these cities with a pictorial journey through their ruins, and each building is accompanied by an overhead plan view.
“The result of 11 years of hard work, this mammoth, well-researched book speaks to India’s rich history and its unique tapestry of myriad cultures. . .It is a trove for all interested in the rich, diverse Indian arts and crafts heritage. Summing up: Highly recommended.” CHOICE
India’s crafts journey resembles the progress of a river from the mountains to the ocean, picking up material, depositing some, changing course, disappearing underground to surface somewhere else. Yet the tradition continues forever. The Dastkari Haat Samiti, a national association of craftspeople, undertook the enormous task of documenting whatever skills and crafts it could find and created artistic crafts maps of each state of India. Three new states were born during the process. A traditional art form of each state provides the backdrop for information meticulously gathered from first- and second-hand sources. The maps provide resource material to people working in different disciplines and a source of aesthetic joy to anyone who uses them as wall posters. The vibrant illustrations and academically rich content are recreated as an atlas of India’s crafts, handmade textiles and traditional arts, covering India’s entire cultural history. Contents: Introduction North: Delhi, Haryana, Punjab, Himachal Pradesh, Jammu and Kashmir, Uttarakhand, Uttar Pradesh. Central: Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand East: Bihar, Odisha, West Bengal, Sikkim, Northeast West: Rajasthan, Gujarat, Maharashtra, Goa South: Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh, Tamil Nadu, Kerala Glossary Acknowledgements Photo credits Index
Mapping India presents an overview of important maps that eloquently reflect the changing social and political fortunes of India. These maps speak of the commercial interests and wars that led to the colonization of India, and show territories the size of countries that were conquered, ceded or controlled through treaties. They also record changed courses of rivers, routes taken by armies, people living in communities in new cities, places where famines occurred, how the highest peak was discovered and named, when native royalty gathered to pay respect to the British Emperor, and the destination to which Mahatma Gandhi marched with his supporters for the salt satyagraha. From the earliest chronicles of India to its post-Independence strides, Mapping India is the story of India recounted through its maps. Contents:
Introduction India Takes Shape and Form The Mughal Empire Early Plans and Sketches Old Cities and Forts Surveys and Maps Wars and Acquisitions The Great Game and The Himalayas Mutiny and Famine General Maps and Atlases References and Suggested Reading
The Churches of India takes the reader on a fascinating journey through India to discover the history and architecture of the country’s Christian churches. With fine illustrations and an informative, easy-to-read text the book reveals the diverse architectural styles that have evolved in different regions from the very beginnings of the Common Era identified with the birth of Christ.
Churches have been built in greater numbers from the middle of the last millennium when settlers such as the Armenians and colonisers, Portuguese, French and British, brought their own branches of Christianity and religious architecture with them. Many churches were indigenized over time while others have retained their architecture in its pure form.
Joanne Taylor’s work gives the reader a deep feeling for the range of churches and their architecture, from the humble to the grand. It is also a fine history of the search by those who design or adapt buildings for a self-identity through the symbolism, explicit or implicit, expressed in built forms.
Religious buildings give India its identity as a nation of diverse people with their own cultures. It is a country with one of the world’s richest architectural traditions. Complemented by over 300 photographs, this absorbing book is the most comprehensive work on India’s churches to date.
This beautifully illustrated book showcases the Hindu and Jain temples of Maharashtra, Telangana, Andhra Pradesh and Karnataka built prior to the invasion of peninsular India by the Delhi sultans at the end of the 13th century. Unlike temples in many other parts of India, those of the Deccan are well preserved, with their wealth of figural and decorative carvings miraculously intact. They demonstrate the development of Indian sacred architecture and art over a span of more than 600 years.
Focusing on some 50 historical sites, the Temples of Deccan India begins with artificially excavated “cave” shrines dedicated to various Hindu deities, before proceeding on to examine free-standing Hindu and Jain monuments sponsored by successive rulers of the Deccan. Attention is paid to the beautiful sculptures found on temple basements, walls, brackets and ceilings. Carved in crisp relief, and sometimes even in three dimensions, these carvings are among the greatest glories of Indian stone art.
Among the featured highlights are the cave temple on the island of Elephanta, with its stupendous representation of three-headed Sadashiva; the colossal, monolithic Kailasa temple at Ellora, a technical feat unsurpassed in the entire history of Indian architecture; the magnificent columned pavilion at Hanamkonda, now currently being reconstructed; and the temple at Belur, with its exquisitely carved female figural brackets. Specially commissioned plans of temple layouts accompany 300+ photographs. and clarify the succession of dynasties that governed the Deccan during the centuries covered here. Maps locate the temple sites, while passages of text illuminate the succession of dynasties that governed the Deccan from the 7th to 13th centuries. Educational, accessible and beautifully illustrated, this book will be of interest to anyone fascinated by Indian architecture.
Glorious Hotels of India is a journey through over 30 of the most intriguing hotels across the country. All have been chosen for their unique spirit, and many have never been seen before in a book. India’s rich heritage and contemporary design properties are displayed through sumptuous images and text. In this updated edition of the bestselling book, authors Cosmo Brockway and Harriet Compston have curated these hidden gems, which are scattered through jungles, beaches, and tropical cities.
This is a languid and sensuous look at some of the loveliest hotels in India. Experience Mughal hunting baghs, laced with pavilions and frangipani, soak up the salt-scented charm of seafront villas and gaze upon urban boutique hotels. Every page glints with the promise of a new discovery. The lighting is atmospheric and the textiles and paintings ravish the eye. Each new look reveals an unseen detail – a Nizam’s crystal fan, a serene carved Nandi, and a mother-of-pearl reflection of the Taj Mahal in a frescoed bathroom.
India has an effortless magnetism that is reflected in these pages. The properties are vastly different in scale, period and setting, and sing together in a pitch-perfect aria hitting each of the country’s highest notes.
The world changed after the First World War. Its aftermath saw the collapse of the German, Russian, Austro-Hungarian, and Ottoman empires, and the world map never seemed the same again. Though the Great War is widely considered to be a European war, it had enormous effects halfway across the world in India. At the advent of the war, the number of Indian soldiers fighting exceeded the number of British soldiers. Because of funds reallocated to Britain’s advantage, India’s economy took a toll as well.
The Indian National Congress believed that supporting Britain’s war efforts would benefit India’s move towards independence. As a result, over a million Indian men were deployed to fight for the British. Post the war, Britain’s refusal to grant India home rule created hostility among the Indians towards them. This dissent eventually paved way for the Indian independence movement, which was to emerge later.
For the first time India’s contribution to the First World War is carefully documented with details of the different theaters in which Indian soldiers took part. In addition, the authors also examine the unsettling encounters the Indian soldiers had with Europe and European culture. What did the war mean for the political climate in India? What was it like for the Indian soldiers to fight a war they were unprepared for? Using first hand accounts such as letters home, documents from the various army archives and incredible photographs, the authors reconstruct the story of a war which was as much India’s as it was Britain’s.
Growing Up Jewish in India offers an historical account of the primary Jewish communities of India, their synagogues, and unique Indian Jewish customs. It offers an investigation both within Jewish India and beyond its borders, tracing how Jews arrived in the vast subcontinent at different times from different places and have both inhabited dispersed locations within the larger Indian world, and ultimately created their own diaspora within the larger Jewish diaspora by relocating to other countries, particularly Israel and the United States.
The text and its rich complement of over 150 images explore how Indian Jews retained their unique characteristics as Jews, became well-integrated into the larger society of India as Indians, and have continued to offer a synthesis of cultural qualities wherever they reside. Among the outcomes of these developments is the unique art of Siona Benjamin, who grew up in the Bene Israel community of Mumbai and then moved to the US, and whose art reflects Indian and Jewish influences as well as concepts like Tikkun olam (Hebrew for ‘repairing the world’).
In combining discussions of the Indian Jewish communities with Benjamin’s own story and an analysis of her artistic output – and in introducing these narratives within the larger story of Jews across eastern Asia – this volume offers a unique verbal and visual portrait of a significant slice of Indian and Jewish culture and tradition. It would be of interest to Jews and non-Jews, Indian and non-Indian alike, as well as to history enthusiasts and the general reader interested in art and culture.
Celebrating Public Spaces of India is an attempt at understanding architecture as a defining feature in the identity of the ‘public space’ and its influence on evolving modes of urbanism in India. Through a carefully curated list of more than fifty vibrant landmarks across the length and breadth of India, this volume analyzes and highlights the socio-cultural functional strength of public spaces within the urban fabric of cities. Featuring evocative photographs and drawings, this volume strives to understand the mechanics of these built and open structures, and their influences on urban cityscapes. With insightful original research, the book is an invaluable resource for anyone wishing to understand the nature of the Indian urban public space.
In ancient Indian sciences, the courtyard assumes the central position as Brahmasthana, the nucleus of the living environment. Lying at the genesis of the urban dwelling form in India across geography and time, it provided for an open-to-sky outdoor space while being away from the public eye and thus suited an introverted lifestyle. In this book, the author traces the metaphysical, mythical, socio-cultural, environmental and spatial roles of the courtyard in the domestic architecture of India — from early civilization and Vedic times to Islamic and colonial influences. This volume documents traditional and vernacular courtyard dwelling types across India within diverse climatic, cultural as well as geographic zones of the country. It then discerns the spatial elements constituting the court, and the arts and crafts as well as the elements integral to the court. Illustrated with splendid photographs and representative drawings, the book attempts to understand the presence and resolution, continued use and adaptation as well as the diverse interpretations and abstractions of the courtyard.
Texture, color, flavor – the essence of India itself, intertwine and explode in this stunning cookbook. Celebrating the patent versatility and abundance of Indian cuisine, India Local focuses on India’s street foods and chaats. It tells the story of a nation through its street offerings, from the bustling lanes of old Delhi and the alleyways of Lucknow to the swarming bylanes of Mumbai and Ahmedabad. The author takes you on a cross-country culinary adventure through the vibrant gullies of Surat to the hilly thoroughfares of Darjeeling, exploring along the way the kitchens-on-wheels from Jaipur to Gangtok all the way down to the hectic curbsides of Chennai.
No two trees are the same. To really know them, we must understand them. To understand trees is to understand life itself.
Iconic Trees of India is a celebration of the country’s most remarkable trees that have stood witness to its vibrant history and become envoys of its culture. Complemented by original watercolors, the book details each legendary tree along with its historical and cultural importance. What makes a Giant Sequoia in Kashmir the loneliest tree of India? What is the dark history behind a peepal tree near Jabalpur? And how does a banyan tree in Hoskote host millions of bees? The answers to these questions and many more are told in detail, weaving together culture, communities, folklore and socio-political commentary.
S. Natesh has spent over a decade traveling to far-flung areas to research and document these talismans of nature. Carry this book along on your next travel and spot these trees, spend time with them and unravel the clues to India’s unique ecological heritage.
With the rising importance of trees in the fight against climate change, Iconic Trees of India is a captivating read, packed with astonishing information that reawakens our sense of wonder at the fascinating world we live in.
At the heart of Indian literature, Dance Theatre of India by Katia Légeret-Manochhaya, is a book where the author explores the various rasas of Bharata-natyam and other dance forms, both as a dancer and a researcher. In the milieu of diverse linguistic and cultural interpretations, the book is a field of experimentation where the modalities for expressions and cultural differences would forever reinvent themselves. As one browses through the pages, one is transported to a world of dance and drama reading the various expressions of the artists in colorful costumes narrating stories from all over the world. The examples proposed are linked with knowledge which derives from the erudition of Sanskrit texts or from the collective creativity of artists from several cultures of India and other countries. Like the art forms it discusses, the book is a transcultural piece of work in its very essence.
Between 2000-2008 India’s economic and political ascendancy were charted in the world’s press. This period of dynamism ushered in an increased sense of confidence, aspiration and pride in being Indian. This book is about the response of the design community to India’s changing environment. It focuses on fashion, graphic and interior design as metaphors of the complex networks that constitute globalization within key metropolitan centers of India. Examined within the context of their production and consumption, and through their economic, social, political and cultural underpinnings, a picture emerges which conveys how designers grapple with issues of identity and globalization, nationhood and modernity, ethics and commerce.
Reverse glass painting is a fascinating yet comparatively unknown facet of Indian art that flourished in the mid-19th century. Painted by Chinese and Indian artists, these ‘exotic’ paintings in luminous colors were much favored by royal patrons, and also by prosperous landowners and city merchants in colonial India. The themes ranged from portraits of rulers, their families, nobles, dancers and courtesans, to landscapes and a wide variety of religious subjects drawn from the Puranas and the Epics. Many of the portraits are set in western-style settings, and offer a charming insight into tastes and lifestyle of the western-educated urban elite in mid-nineteenth and early twentieth century India.
From long lost paintings to ephemeral sculptures; from whimsical performances to iconic public murals; and from independent films to landmark design objects, the surprising and provocative contents of Moving Focus, India have been provided by a varied group of experts. A first of its kind, this book invited 54 artists, curators, historians and writers to each create a list of five works of art, made at any time since 1900, by artists living in India or identifying as part of its diaspora.
With over 250 individual nominations, including artists whose works have been exhibited at venues as various as Houghton Hall (Anish Kapoor, 2020), the Asia Society Museum, New York (MF Husain, 2019) and the Piramal Museum of Art, Mumbai (SH Raza, 2018), the exercise produced thrilling and unexpected choices across many mediums. Drawing from a wide range of private and public collections, the selections reveal the diversity and inclusiveness of today’s art scene: an art scene that has embraced the progressive changes evident in society at large. In addition to these lists, the book includes reflections on collecting, curating and canon-formation from a range of important voices, by way of a roundtable discussion and a series of essays.
Spread over two volumes and marked by an innovative and fresh design sensibility, whether you are familiar with modern and contemporary art from the subcontinent or looking for an introduction, Moving Focus, India contains a wealth of information. Lavishly illustrated with over 1,000 archival and freshly commissioned photographs, this book is an important and timely addition to the global art discourse and a key source of reference.
Nominated artists include Ramkinkar Baij, Chittaprosad, VS Gaitonde, Amrita Sher Gil, Rummana Hussain, Bhupen Khakhar, Nasreen Mohamedi, Benode Behari Mukherjee, Meera Mukherjee, Mrinalini Mukherjee, Gieve Patel, Sudhir Patwardhan, Nilima Sheikh, Jangarh Singh Shyam, KG Subramanyan, Vivan Sundaram, Zarina and many more.
For almost three decades, Tarun Tahiliani has galvanized Indian fashion. His vision and its translation into garments have reintroduced India to her own rich sartorial history and legacy. Journey to India Modern celebrates Tahiliani’s contribution not simply through bewitching clothing but also through a question that he aims to answer through his ensembles: Can the past and present be merged for the global contemporary society?
The book charts its way through the very first fashion photo shoot when there were limited expressions of fashion in India to the modern day. While garments and design retain the focus, the essays also illustrate the way Tahiliani explored and crystallized a vision of India—from road trips during the heydays of socialism to his arrival as a leading couturier to the most celebrated women and men in Indian society.
Garments from Tahiliani’s oeuvre are illustrative in understanding the past and reconcile histories that were affected by colonialism and globalization. While the book begins its life in Bombay, the journey is a tour of the country—from its urban slums to the farthest corners of the country and fashion weeks across the globe—in a bid to identify arts that were neglected and revived. It is embellished with anecdotes, imagery, sketches and stories that present a holistic view of who they are, where they are headed, and what it means to be an Indian luxury design studio in a rapidly transforming world.
The Ashmolean Museum is fortunate in having the most comprehensive British collection of the art of the Indian subcontinent outside London. Especially strong in sculpture, this rich representation of Indian art from prehistory to the twentieth century has come about through the generosity of our benefactors over more than three centuries. The Museum’s first major Indian sculpture acquisition, a stone Pala-style Vishnu image of the eleventh century, was given in 1686 by Sir William Hedges, a governor of the East India Company in Bengal. From the late nineteenth century, a substantial core of the present collection was assembled at the University’s former Indian Institute Museum (1897-1962), precursor of the Department of Eastern Art, which opened within the Ashmolean in 1963. Since that date many more Indian objects of all periods have been acquired by gift, bequest or purchase.
Contents: Introduction; Prehistoric South Asia; The Northwest; North & Central India; Eastern India and Deccan; Miscellanea; Bibliography.
Defining a distinct style of painting produced in India during the British period and influenced by European artistic norms, this catalogue of Company Paintings in the TAPI (Textiles & Art of the People of India) Collection is a unique illustration of the social milieu prevailing in India in the nineteenth century. Tracing the origins and evolution of this genre of painting, the volume shines a fresh beam on subjects commissioned to be painted by officials of the East India Company, such as occupations, customs, dress, bazaars, festivals and daily life of ordinary people, a world removed from the elite and princely environment that was the chosen subject of Indian miniature artists. The catalogue of the TAPI Collection of Company Paintings highlights works from the major regions where such paintings were produced – Murshidabad, Calcutta, Patna, Lucknow, Delhi, Punjab, Kutch, Tanjore, Trichinopoly, Madras, Kerala and the Andhra Coast. It comprises a rich and accurate record of the diverse modes of dress and manners of the people before the advent of photography. This catalogue documents the first-ever exhibition on the subject to be held in India, being a collaboration between TAPI and CSMVS (Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj Vastu Sangrahalaya, formerly the Prince of Wales Museum of Western India).
India, Jewels that Enchanted the World presents for the first time the remarkable history and unique legacy of 500 years of Indian jewelry, from the 17th century to the present. The essays, all written by leading international scholars, explore the rich, distinctive, and unique heritage of Indian jewelry; the striking boldness of South Indian ornaments; the delicate refinement of the Mughal period; the dazzling jewels of the post-Mughal maharajas; the cross-cultural influences between Europe and India in the 19th and early 20th centuries; and the creations of leading contemporary designers whose jewels display the enduring beauty of Indian design and craftsmanship.
Published to accompany a major exhibition at the State Museums of the Moscow Kremlin organized jointly with the Indo-Russian Jewellery Foundation, this lavishly illustrated catalog brings together royal, ceremonial, and personal Indian jewels to showcase the entire range and variety of the jeweler’s art in India.
A collector’s edition measuring a prodigious 11.5 x 15.5 inches, India Through Iconic Maps is a sight to behold – an unprecedented display of the scale, story and beauty of mapmaking in India. There is more to a map than just the sheet of paper one sees – there’s a motive, a story, people, circumstances, science, mathematics, technology and analysis among other aspects. This book with more than 400 maps aims to highlight and bring forth these hidden layers of a map and trace a unique cartographical history of the Indian subcontinent.