Glancing at the amaranth’s blossoming sprays Glowing in exquisite loveliness just-revealed Loveliness that rightly belongs to the beloved’s face How can a responsive heart not flutter in pain Stung by proud Love’s flying arrows, my love? These radiant, finely crafted,...
THE question that I’m almost always asked at the end of a lecture on Indian painting, in India or abroad, is: "Did women also paint?" or "Do we know the names of any women artists." Quite obviously, the questions relate...
B.N. Goswamy on how artists led protests against apartheid
Psychic realisation is all about spiritual experience, about life and consciousness and the ecstasy of bliss, something that language is utterly incapable of describing
St. Tropez Celebrates India gives a peep into the private lives of the Europeans, particularly the French in the Punjab
B. N. Goswamy on how 15th century European painters took eagerly to the subject of St Luke painting the Virgin and the Child
SOME three weeks back, I found myself in the midst of a select group of men and women who had come to see, and hear, about the Ramayana. If I were in India, this would have been the most common of occurrences,...
The sanjhi paper-cuts, sold mostly as decorative objects, are elegantly executed but essentially dissociated from sacred use
THIS might sound unusual to some ears, but each time that I see a certain 17th century Mughal painting in the Aga Khan collection, it puts me in mind of Ali Sardar Ja’fri, and one of those wonderful poems of...
THERE couldn’t be many who have never heard of Puri, that great centre of pilgrimage in Orissa, or of its presiding deity, Jagannath, “Lord of the World”, who rules over the hearts and life of millions in that region. But...
The 19th century saw a host of artists from England, trained professionals and talented amateurs, virtually descend upon India, painting the land and her people, writes B. N. Goswamy
There are puppets everywhere, and one knows at least those from our own land well.
It is not easy to write anything on Mughal painting without recalling Ananda Coomaraswamy’s elegant, finely-cut words. Close to a hundred years ago, he began an essay by saying: “Mughal art is secular, intent upon the present moment,..
Women of high rank were ordinarily not portrayed as observed from life but as idealised beings. It was only those from the lower strata like performers, working women or attendants, who were painted from life
Jade, a semi-precious stone, found its expression, both as a material and symbol, in China, says B. N. Goswamy
A superbly produced portfolio of five large paintings graphically and tersely depicts the early events in the life of Krishna
In the works of the 12th century Sufi poet Farid ad-Din Attar, mysticism remains in balance with a storyteller’s art, writes B. N. Goswamy
Danielle Porret’s recently published catalogue of her collection A Secret Garden gives much inspiration and joy
NO 551 MAY 21: Strap: A young Londonbased painter got drawn towards Indian miniature paintings and this is what transpired
One is struck by is the utter freedom with which the painters of manuscripts from Assam went about their task: playing with space and colour envisioning things using panIndian conventions but bending and twisting them to their own ends
On the contribution of Antoine Louis Polier, an Indophile
Prints, paintings and drawings, mostly with religious themes, which the Jesuit fathers and other Europeans brought with them influenced the work of painters in Akbar’s court
THIS piece is as much about art and archaeology, as it is about politics. The above title belongs to a small but carefully-mounted exhibition on the “Ancient world of the Indus Valley”which was on view till a few weeks back...
The works of Bireswar Sen continue to beckon and excite
Merce Cunningham whose work had profoundly changed modern dance left conventional notions of the art far behind
A recent exhibition in Delhi celebrated the seasons in different art forms.
Precious objects placed alongside folk objects is what distinguishes Mittals’ art collection
The book on sacred textiles helps us understand the rituals, production and iconography of the printed fabric of Gujarat
The colour yellow summons forth an endless train of images, each carrying an association
WHILE working on an exhibition on the arts of the Punjab these past few weeks, I became sharply aware of the extent to which, from earlier times, it is the arts centred upon the courts that keep impinging our awareness,...