The movement of Houghton Shahnama manuscript from Iran to Turkey to Europe and then to the United States, besides the movement of ‘peerless’ artists working on it, raises the question of how art travels
The movement of Houghton Shahnama manuscript from Iran to Turkey to Europe and then to the United States, besides the movement of ‘peerless’ artists working on it, raises the question of how art travels
Fearing the moon, she dares not view her own reflection, frightened of the cuckoo's call, she utters not a word. How strange, then, that swearing enmity to Kama who furnishes such fires, the artless maiden's love, oh handsome one, grows...
IT is not a common occurrence, but good things come out sometimes even from sarkari initiatives. When, for example, late last year, the "Golden Jubilee of Handicrafts Resurgence in India" was celebrated, under the sponsorship of the Ministry of Textiles, it became...
A recent exhibition on Anasuya Sarabhai, popularly known as Motaben, paid a tribute to the courageous woman, who worked selflessly for the uplift of the less fortunate
“Being Gandhi,” the title of a series of images, is a tribute to the performative art of impersonation
The Jnaneshwari is no routine commentary upon the Bhagavadgita: it is regarded as a classic of early Marathi literature on its own,
"In a way a painting is not fully realized until several centuries of poems have been added to it." YEARS ago, returning from the United States via the Pacific, I was on a flight from the Japanese city of Kyoto...
Highly cultivated Japanese practices like the tea ceremony, haiku, monochrome ink painting, Zen meditation were all within the ambit of the samurais
Safdar Jafri was filled with deep concerns, but possessed of a mellow, affecting voice in his poetry. A warm, gentle being who registered everything, he was somehow able to withdraw to a distance and view things calmly, writes B. N. Goswamy, paying a tribute to this legendary poet
BN Goswamy Looking over the road to my homeland Under the bright moonlight The clouds are turning around, flying. My country is located to the edge of northern sky. Who would fly to my town, Silla, and deliver my words?...
"Here is a man who transforms a blank sheet of paper into all space, an inkwell into all the waves in the ocean, the tip of a brush into the mountain Sumeru itself …." — Hoyen Gosozan (died 1104), writing...
Theatre curtains and sets, which were in vogue nearly a century ago, have inspired many an artist
HOW remarkably little do museums form a part of people’s awareness generally in India, one knows. But even those who do know something about them, or take interest in these matters, would not find it easy to answer these two...
When my granddaughter Damini returned from a short break abroad she told me of an interesting exchange she had with a minor functionary someone like an usher or a bellhop of a hotel in which she was staying
The Basmalah appears everywhere: carved on monuments, engraved in stone, etched upon metal, penned upon paper. And one is constantly astonished at the form it takes in gifted hands
A virtual reality show at Melbourne on Vijayanagar offers a strikingly different visual and emotional experience, writes B. N. Goswamy
Exquisitely woven Vasco da Gama tapestries, describing his visit to India, were conceived as a document of an empire to celebrate a triumph
From a simple village lad, who would wander off into the fields to draw, S. G. Thakur Singh became one of the most prominent artists of the region, all on the strength of his hard work and single-minded pursuit
It has taken long, but slowly and surely the work of the painters of the southern part of our country is coming into sharp focus. Sculpture is another matter—for the sheer brilliance of southern sculpture was always recognised —but time was...
There is scarcely a major museum in the world, which has not, at one time, or another, acquired a fake. It would seem that not all art is truth, writes B. N. Goswamy
It is a technique for producing colourful patterns on paper by swirls of paint, traditionally water-based paint, floating on water, writes B. N. Goswamy
Many an artist has painted Mirza Ghalib and Momin, the two iconic figures in poetry, differently
A sense of exquisite neatness and refinement is striking in the works of Swiss abstract artist Sylvia Zumbach
The works produced by Indian artists, mainly for servants of the East India Company, are alive with the most wonderful of observations and remarkable penetration of character, says B. N. Goswamy
Though the founders of Rampur in Uttar Pradesh were Rohilla Pathans, who lived mostly by the sword, this little place emerged as a major centre of the arts, writes B. N. Goswamy
IT is unlikely that the Macclesfield Psalter has been the subject of much talk here lately. Very few might, in fact, have even heard of it. For one thing, a psalter is a Biblical book of psalms, and not many...
The remains of the Viking age reveal remarkable levels of sophistication in their art and artefacts
SOME days ago, the elegant city of Zurich seemed suddenly to have been taken over by sorcerers and demons, fairies and sea-monsters. For, the Hamzanama show had opened at the Museum Rietberg. And everywhere you went, you were confronted with looming, superbly...
THE last time that I met Horst Metzger in Zurich some years back, I had no idea that he was suffering from an illness that eventually claimed his life last year. He must have known it himself, of course, but...
A recent book on tea establishes for the reader what tea means to Indians, and how it is served everywhere, besides providing a peep into its history