It is a fascinating story that the merchant companies of Europe, established with the aim of sourcing exotic eastern spices, stumbled upon Indian handmade textiles and found these a highly profitable product for their home markets. This process was to have far-reaching consequences for colonial history.
In When Indian Flowers Bloomed in Europe the author takes us on a tour of 30 masterpieces of Indian textiles from the TAPI Collection, commissioned by European patrons in the 17th and 18th centuries. Presented here are outstanding examples of large, intricately hand-drawn, dye-painted cotton chintzes made in the Coromandel Coast, and embroidered palampores and garment pieces made in Gujarat and the Deccan. Textiles made for Dutch and British patrons demonstrate the aesthetic high point achieved by Indian artisans in the 17th and 18th centuries. Indian patterned cottons such as these, with their infinite variety of floral motifs, left a profound and enduring impact on textile designers in the western hemisphere, unexpectedly setting the stage for the Industrial Revolution.
The informative text is accompanied by rarely seen images from museums and private collections, offering fresh insights into these iconic examples. Three essays followed by individually explained catalog entries for each textile add to a greater understanding of an important, historical phase in the development and global recognition of India’s textile art, now preserved in museums and collections worldwide as a testament to the handiwork of the skilled artisans of India.
Six women, six stories. They make cartoons and graphic work in the besieged Syrian city of Idlib or unfree Egypt of President al-Sisi, they fight fat shaming and homophobia in Mexico, are on the run from president Putin, criticize Hindu nationalism and misogyny from Indian Prime Minister Modi or defy the powers that be in The Washington Post. Whether they are from Mexico, the USA, Syria, Egypt, India or Russia, they all belong to the absolute world top. But the way to the top was not an easy one for any of them.
Architecture Asia, as the official journal of the Architects Regional Council Asia, aims to provide a forum, not only for presenting Asian phenomena and their characteristics to the world, but also for understanding diversity and multiculturalism within Asia from a global perspective.
This issue focuses on the topic of Architecture Writing and Literature, and features five essays and ten projects that elaborate on this topic. The five essays, separately, introduce Writing Architectural Pedagogies, Indian Architectural Literature in UKs Academe, Architecture of Writing and Criticism, How to Believe in Architecture becoming Author of History and Writing Habitation and Inhabiting Writing. The ten projects, accompanied with full-color photos and text descriptions, highlight various types of architectural works from China, India, Indonesia, Japan, Malaysia, Singapore, showing how architects show their projects through words, depending on the types of architectural work.
If there is one grand tale that has impacted Asia, it has to be the Ramayana, the great Indian epic. From India, the Rama tale is presumed to have traveled along three routes — by land, the northern route took the story from Punjab and Kashmir into China, Tibet, and East Turkestan; by sea, the southern route carried the story from Gujarat and South India into Java, Sumatra, and Malaya; and again by land, the eastern route delivered the story from Bengal into Burma, Thailand, Laos, and to some extent, Cambodia and Vietnam. In Indonesia and Malaysia, the epic has been incorporated into the Islamic tradition; Theravada Buddhism in Thailand and Cambodia adopted Hindu divinities from the Rama story into its fold.
With stunning original art, this sumptuously illustrated volume celebrates this all-inclusive tradition of the epic, foregrounding it as a cultural phenomenon across time and space.
Hand-woven rugs from Persia are among the most exquisite art works ever created. In this fully revised edition of Persian Rugs, Essie Sakhai reveals recent discoveries that present us with a new understanding of this unique art. With hundreds of stunning new photographs, taken especially for this book, Sakhai takes us on a journey through Iran and beyond.
Beginning with the history and art of creating woven masterpieces, Persian Rugs goes on to present full-page examples of some of the most cherished and valuable rugs and carpets in the world. No two hand-woven carpets are the same, each with its own special property, beauty and quality. Sakhai has handpicked the most important of these and gives detailed explanations of how and why these art forms hold such singular and even mystical appeal. A new demand for original and ancient hand-woven pieces has increased their value greatly, leading to world-record prices being achieved at auction and important examples entering major museum collections around the world.
Indian Summer presents a group of skillful and expressive figurative paintings in oil on canvas and linen by artist Raghav Babbar (b. 1997) that include intimate portraits as well as large-scale group compositions. Babbar’s sitters span friends from his childhood in Rohtak, a city north-west of Delhi, pan-sellers, dancers from the south of India, family members, as well as himself.
Indian Summer is the first publication on Babbar, which features reproductions of over forty works created from 2020–23 and views of his 2023 exhibitions at Nahmad Projects, London, and Bevilacqua La Masa, Venice. Lock Kresler, Senior Director at Helly Nahmad Gallery, London, introduces the book, explaining his first encounters with Babbar and his practice. An essay by art historian, broadcaster, and commentator Dr Cleo Roberts-Komireddi examines how Babbar uses his materials, treats his subjects, and delves into his sources of inspiration, classic Hindi and Tamil cinema and the School of London artists.
Babbar celebrates the individual as he showcases the diversity of his country in his textural, rich, and joyful portraits that teem with life.
This lavishly illustrated book, the second volume in the series Orchha,Datia, Panna: Miniatures from the Royal Courts of Bundelkhand (1590–1850),deals with the second and third periods of Orchha painting, which span the years 1605 through 1675. A central theme of the paintings presented in this volume is the love between the archetypal couple Krishna and Radha, which is both mystical-religious and secular-playful in nature. Indeed, it is the confluence of sacred and profane love that gives India’s culture and art its unique spirit. The images were created to illustrate poetic works such as the Rasikapriya, whose author, the Orchha court poet Keshavdas, invites his readers to savor the aesthetic and religious delight of Radha-Krishna love through his riti lyrics in the vernacular language of his era. Through stylistic analyzes and interpretations of over 100 paintings from his collection, many of them published here for the first time, the author brings to light the accomplishments of the Orchha school during its heyday in the seventeenth century.
Wabi-sabi, that ancient philosophy which embraces imperfection, lies at the very heart of Japanese traditions—both artistic and societal. Today, it is being diluted by modernity. Worse still, this timeless aesthetic—nourished by the slow passage of time and enriched by the patina of age—is being cheapened by the mass-market home décor industry. Reducing wabi-sabi to what it once was, or to a fleeting “lifestyle” trend, is to confine it within a box. From their encounter with architect Kengo Kuma, the authors have retained—and illustrate here—his vision of “modern wabi-sabi. Through their travels in India, Europe, and Morocco, they have witnessed the transcontinental ripple effect of wabi-sabi and, through this aesthetic, the subtle yet powerful influence of Japan. While journeying through the Japanese archipelago, they met with a new generation who is preserving, revealing, and carrying forward this philosophy: the new ambassadors of wabi-sabi. From a shared moment with a monk in a teahouse to a thousand quiet joys, they experienced the wabi-sabi feeling… They summon it here, and invite you to experience it too.
Part travel journal, part photo book, and part collection of testimonies—Anne-Emmanuelle Thion, a nomadic photographer, and Thierry Grundman, a traveling antiques dealer and founder of Atmosphère d’Ailleurs and the Wabi-Sabi Lab—offer a cross-cultural, contemporary vision of wabi-sabi through encounters with those who embody it today.
Text in English and French.
The famed Bengal textiles which once ‘clothed the world’ have received little scholarly attention. With the systemic destruction of Bengal’s textile industry, prompted by the Industrial Revolution in Europe, the muslins and Balucharis of Bengal were lost in obscurity. The partition of the Indian subcontinent and the consequent varieties of cultural and social identity in present-day India and Bangladesh have contributed to this neglect. This pioneering publication explores in depth the lost textile traditions of Bengal from the 16th to the 20th century and traces its impact on the historical and cultural aspects of the region.
Supported by superb illustrations of textiles, maps and trade documents from the past, most of which have never been published before, the book serves as a public history, with engaging chapters presenting a unique perspective on the textiles of wider Bengal. This volume will inspire the reader, reorient scholarly attention and provoke a rethinking of the nature and history of Bengal textiles.
It had been a desert, its dunes languorously meeting the lapping sea which has played its part in world trade since the beginning of time. There had been the gold and spices from nearby India, and the petroleum of today, extracted from its sands or brought from elsewhere, from off the shores of its coasts. It is difficult to imagine that these seven Emirates have a history, as understood in Western canons. Here, the past seems to have been dug away with excavators, drowned in concrete, built over with metropolitan motorways. This does not prevent it from seeming to surge forth at the slightest provocation, at the smallest of solicitations. Proud of what the world acknowledges as his country’s achievements, the most insolent of Emiratis grows less arrogant when recalling his father’s fathers. Fathers who, hardly more than four decades ago, were Bedouins, traders, camel drivers, almost all pearl fishers. It is in this way that this modern history was written. Twenty centuries of hard seasonal migration of their livestock, intensive trade, fierce competition, destructive setbacks and creative imagination forged mentalities that have made this desert into one of the richest and most envied places in the world. What seems a modern miracle is no more than the culmination of an ancient culture having survived mishap and change to forge a modern economy.
Tsha-tsha are terracottas, or unfired earthenware figures, in the form of cast-sculptured stupas/chörten (reliquaries) or reliefs, which are decorated in a variety of religious motifs in bas-relief or half-relief. These votive offerings in earth or loam are produced by hand by believers or monks with models (casts) and serve many different purposes in every day religious life. With the depiction of over 360 objects, this book offers an outstanding review of the diverse manifestations and the extensive iconography of these exceptional ritual objects from the Buddhist cultural sphere. Text in German.
Buddhist Art of Gandhara is a scholarly catalogue of the Ashmolean Museum’s important but still largely unpublished holdings of the Buddhist sculpture and related art of the historic Gandhara region (modern North West Pakistan / East Afghanistan) in the early centuries AD (c. 0-600 AD). This region was a major center of Buddhist culture and facilitated the transmission of Buddhism and its art from India via the Silk Road to Central Asia, China and the Far East. The book contains introductory essays, with additional illustrations, suitable for the general reader as well as the specialist. Contents: General introduction; 1. Stupas and reliquaries; 2a. Life panels; 2b. Panels and fragments; 3a. Buddhas; 3b Bodhisattvas; 4. Stuccos; 5. Bronzes; 6. Deities; 7. Household objects; Bibliography; Index.
A ‘caravanserai’ is a roadside inn found along ancient caravan routes in the Muslim world. For centuries the caravanserais served as staging posts in the Middle East and Central Asia, providing accommodation to traders, pilgrims, and other travellers along the Silk Road that connected China, India, and Europe. The caravanserais were vital nodes in what was in effect the first globalized overland network and trading system. Thousands of these caravanserais were built and successfully operated. They survived empires, caliphates and wars until the demise of the caravan trade. Those that have not vanished, have become crumbling ruins, or survive as hotels, museums, shops, storage space, living quarters, or military outposts. In the tumultuous state of relations between the Western and Muslim worlds today, the caravanserais stand as evidence of ancient multi-cultural exchange and trade. They inspire the quest to find such new platforms of multi-cultural dialogue for the future. Belgian photographer Tom Schutyser has travelled the Silk Road numerous times in fifteen years, first photographing caravanserais in northeast Iran. For this project, Schutyser chose the levant region of Lebanon, Syria, and Jordan, photographing both ruined and restored caravanserais as well as the landscape and surroundings of these buildings, seeking to capture the sense of history still present in these places. His stunning, powerful photographs, illuminated by contributions from some of the most eminent writers, thinkers, and journalists specialising in the Middle East and foreign relations, combine to present a new dimension on the debate about the region as it is today. Text in English and French.
For fifteen years, renowned photographer Jan Locus has photographed the many different faces of christianity. In this contemporary book on faith and devotion, he portrays the variety of lifestyles which accompany some of the reported two billion followers of Christianity, through a collection of stunning black and white photographs. Text in English & Dutch.
Handmade and handcrafted objects are a part of daily life in Gujarat. The crafts of Gujarat demonstrate the symbiotic relationship between humans and nature and offer meaningful lessons in sustainable living for future generations. The ingenious use of natural and locally available materials is combined with a unique aesthetic, bringing together form and function in each magnificent product. With simple tools, adherence to norms set by tradition and with their imagination, the artisans of Gujarat have embodied human potential. Traditional skills are now applied to create products for the contemporary world, demonstrating convincingly that natural and handmade products are adaptable over time, and, that tradition continues to be relevant in modern times.
Before any sound critical framework could be evolved around the phenomenal artist Jangarh Singh Shyam as the originator of an extraordinary individualistic idiom of painting, ruthless market forces regrettably came to dominate his art and Jangarh himself became their first casualty. While trying to finish a large commission at a museum in Japan under adverse circumstances, Jangarh committed suicide in 2001. He was 40.
A whole range of conditions, events and mediations associated with Jangarh’s life and his art practice has since remained underexplored. This book is a first attempt to construct an equitable account of the formation of his prodigious artistic body of work that founded his legacy and grew into a movement. As a prime critical analysis of Jangarh Singh Shyam’s oeuvre, this book also serves as a model framework for the study of a contemporary individual folk and tribal artist.
The book probes the efficacy of extra-cultural interventions into an individual artist’s operative and relatively well-grounded indigenous cultural tradition, and asks how the latter interacts with the new, while intentionally reinventing itself.
This volume is published in association with the Museum of Art and Photography (MAP), Bangalore.
This volume is the first to bring together the V&A Museum’s collection of 19th-century temple hangings from South India, made in the kalamkari style of hand drawing, mordant-dyeing and painting. This is the first time they have been fully illustrated with complete translations of their inscriptions, accompanied by detailed analyses of their narratives. Published in association with the V&A Museum, London, this volume features original research and lavish illustrations.
Introduction: The Ramayana: Contructed, Killed and Brought; Ramayana Chirala; Ramayana Machilipatnam; Ramayana Srikalahasti; Ramayana Srikalahasti (English captions); Ramayana Sri Lanka; Ramayana: Selected Scenes; Balakanda Madurai; Yuddhakanda Madurai; Krishnacharita Coastal Andhra. Two Episodes from the Mahabharata; The Killing of Shishupala Madurai; The Duel between Karna and Arjuna Madurai. Two Ganga Hangings; Ganga Dupatti Machilipatnam; Ganga Dupatti Machilipatnam; Mahalakshmi Pithakam Machilipatnam. Introduction to Holy Sites; Sri Subrahmanya Temple, Tiruchendur; Sri Subrahmanyaswami Temple, Tirupparankunram; Sri Ranganathaswami Temple, Srirangam; Alagar Koyil Chittirai Festival; The Life of Christ Srikalahasti; Bibliography; Glossary; Acknowledgements.
This publication emanates from an exhibition by the same title, displayed for the first time at the Alliance Française de Delhi. It is an attempt to trace the development of photography and the other allied visual arts in Pondicherry spanning the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Drawn exclusively from The Alkazi Collection of Photography, at the core of this initiative is the unpublished album by renowned photographer Henri Cartier-Bresson, co-founder of Magnum Photos, who visited the Sri Aurobindo Ashram in April 1950. He took the last pictures of Sri Aurobindo Ghose in the company of his spiritual companion, the Mother. In addition, he meticulously penned his observations almost daily, creating a meta-text around the images, which presents a biographical and anecdotal supplement for his photographic endeavour. The visual material is further enhanced by some extraordinary images of Indian photographers from the same period such as Tara Jauhar and Venkatesh Shirodkar at Aurobindo Ashram, published here for the first time.
In this catalogue a conscious effort has been made to bring out a non-linear, yet credible history of how Pondicherry has been witness to the development of a unique visual trajectory. The use of images as evidence and document create a subtle interplay between cultural context and artistic intent, a conceptual linking of mannerisms and tropes those of landscape, architectural and portrait photography.
The Jeypore Exhibition of 1883 was regarded as among the most important industrial exhibitions of 19th century, where specimen of the best art work of India was curated. Credited to the arduous efforts of Thomas Holbein Hendley, a British officer in the princely state of Jaipur, the Exhibition was primarily an attempt to showcase local skills. A permanent ‘memorial’ of the Exhibition was produced as a four-part set of illustrated volumes, authored by Hendley and commissioned by the visionary Maharaja of Jaipur. The first volume contained a number of chromo-lithographs and a general description of the plates in the first three books of the set. The second and third volumes contained 100 photographs of Indian art work, while Volume IV also included reproductions in platinum of the illustrations of Emperor Akbar’s own copy of the Razmanama, the Persian epic. Published by W.H. Griggs, some sets were presented to leading museums of the world, and very few copies were sold. This facsimile edition of a rare copy of Volume I, preserved at Jawahar Kala Kendra in Jaipur, is now published to recreate those splendors documented by Hendley, for modern-day scholars and connoisseurs. Co-published with Jawahar Kala Kendra, Jaipur.
Modern Indian Painting presents a survey of Indian painting from the late 19th century to the present day, drawn from the private collection of Jane and Kito de Boer remarkable for its broad historical scope and wide range of artists. The book clearly delineates major developments over a long period of time, while contextualizing them with previously unpublished examples by major artists. The first part of the book features the de Boers talking about their passion for India and Indian art. The second part presents a history of modern Indian painting, with essays on the Bengal School, the so-called ‘Dutch Bengal’ artists, the Calcutta naturalists, the portrait painters of the Bombay School in the early 20th century, the Progressive Artists Group and the post-Independence artists of Bengal. The de Boer collection also contains strong representations of a few individual artists, such as Chittaprosad, Ganesh Pyne, Ramachandran and Broota, whose works are explored through essays and interviews. The fact that many of these chapters draw almost exclusively on the de Boer collection is a testament to its incredible size and breadth. In this volume, we hope to show how the collection takes a dispassionate view of the global status of Indian art, while at the same time revealing a commitment and long-term engagement with the country and its creativity. With contributions from Partha Mitter, Giles Tillotson, Yashodhara Dalmia, Sona Datta, Sanjay Kumar Mallik and Rob Dean.
Mohan Samant (1924-2004), among the earliest of the post-Independence modern Indian artists to train in India and settle as a successful mature artist in the West, has been called ‘one of the few artists who has successfully made the bridge between Eastern and Western traditions.’
Born in Mumbai, Samant received his diploma from the Sir JJ School of Art in 1952, where he had studied under S.B. Palsikar. That year he joined the Progressive Artists Group. Extended periods abroad – 1957-58 in Rome and travel in Europe and Egypt, 1959-64 in New York City – preceded his leaving Mumbai permanently for New York in 1968, where he lived until his death in 2004.
Published in association with Abraham Joel, New York, and Pundole Art Gallery, Mumbai. With an introduction by Ranjit Hoskote and additional contributions from Abhijeet Gondkar, Virginia Kaycoff, Sharad Ghamande, Barbara Bertieri, Abraham Joel, and Judith Wink.
Previously published as part of a set, this volume, which concentrates on Samant’s paintings, is now available separately.
Mohan Samant (1924-2004), among the earliest of the post-Independence modern Indian artists to train in India and settle as a successful mature artist in the West, has been called ‘one of the few artists who has successfully made the bridge between Eastern and Western traditions.’
Born in Mumbai, Samant received his diploma from the Sir JJ School of Art in 1952, where he had studied under S.B. Palsikar. That year he joined the Progressive Artists Group. Extended periods abroad – 1957-58 in Rome and travel in Europe and Egypt, 1959-64 in New York City – preceded his leaving Mumbai permanently for New York in 1968, where he lived until his death in 2004.
Published in association with Abraham Joel, New York, and Pundole Art Gallery, Mumbai. With an introduction by Ranjit Hoskote and additional contributions from Abhijeet Gondkar, Virginia Kaycoff, Sharad Ghamande, Barbara Bertieri, Abraham Joel, and Judith Wink.
Previously published as part of a set, this volume, which concentrates on Samant’s paintings, is now available separately.
The Goddess Devi, the primordial Shakti, is a revelation of the eternal Brahman in a maternal aspect. She is worshipped during the autumnal festival of Durga Pujo in Bengal every year.
In this volume, Peter Bjorn Franceschi presents a photographic exploration of the mother goddess in the making, a visual diary of the clay idols of the goddess Durga, from conception to finished form. The book takes us through the winding lanes of Kumartuli, home to the master artists who craft the clay idols of the Devi for the Durga Pujo. Accompanying these photographs are verses from Sankaracharya’s poetic work, Saundaryalahari (Waves of Beauty), translated by the scholar Minati Kar. The work is a paean to the goddess Durga, entwining Advaita Vedanta and Tantra philosophy to paint a splendid picture of Devi, starting from the crown of her head and ending at her feet. These poetic descriptions serve as a deeper layer to the visuals, and as an alternate way of interpreting the process of image making. Delving deep into the philosophical and artistic aspects of the divinity of goddess Durga, this volume is a visual celebration of her many forms, and also of the artisans who have occupied a centuries-old caesura between devotion and art.