INDIAN ART AND ARCHITECTURE

INDIAN ART HISTORY : CHANGING PERSPECTIVES

(Parul Pandya Dhar)

ASSIGNMENT - I

(Jagriti Mishra – 926)

(Aarushi Verma – 1056)

“If I could say it in words there would be no reason to paint.” ~ Edward Hopper

There are certain Major issues pertaining to art of art history writing.

1. The intimately allied nature of the disciplines of history, archaeology, and art history.

2. The political compulsions of academic research in the colonial period.

3. The conflict between ideology and training of the early 'native' scholar.
Eg: Two noted Indologists, Stella Kramrisch and Heinrich Zimmer, shared with Ananda
Coomaraswamy a deep empathy for the origins, meanings, and motivations of Indian
art. Yet there are noticeable differences in their orientations and perspectives, which
may have resulted from differences in training.

RATAN PARIMOO EXPLAINS

Stella Kramrisch and Heinrich Zimmer were trained in Austrian-German school and
hence developed far greater empathy for Indian philosophy Myth religion n art.

Coomaraswamy traversed in English, American, and French circles and hence could
not escape the biases of a colonizer

Stella Kramrisch
Claimed the long denied status of fine art
As different from the writings of Coomaraswamy, for whom the 'outer' form of art was a
means to approach the beauty and purpose of its inner meaning,

Kramrisch also verbalized the undeniable artistic merit of Indian art and the relationship
of the 'outer' form and style of Indian art with its 'internal' processes - metaphysical,
ritualistic, and aesthetic.

4. Issues concerning the 'region' versus the 'nation;'

Eg: While rajendrala contested the hegemony of European scholarship, his training and
hence understanding of Indian art were grounded in Western terms of reference and
Greco-Roman standards or canons. At the same time, his acute awareness of the
regional context of Eastern Indian artistic manifestations, as seen in his works on the
 antiquities of Orissa and Bodhgaya, helped in underlining the 'region' in relation to the
'nation' as an important construct in the study of Indian art and architecture.

5. Western assumptions of the derivative nature and gradual decay of Indian art.

6. And the differing academic priorities and ideological tensions between Alexander
Cunningham, James Fergusson, Rajendralala
……

Among those who pioneered study of Indian architecture

Alexander Cunningham
Fugerson
Rajendralala
Ram Raz

1,2 were orientalists. I.e characterized the material remains of India's past within
colonial constructs.

3,4 were nationalists interpreted Indian art history in context of its specific cultural matrix
engaging with the textual n regional coordinates.

The debates and differences between 'Orientalist' and 'Nationalist' ideological moorings
as exemplified by Fergusson's disputes with and accusations. against Rajendralala
Mitra, steeped in racial overtones, are well-known in colonial art historiography.

In a larger context, it reveals the academic politics that shaped the relative
institutional importance accorded to archaeology vis-a-vis art and architectural
history.
……………..

Orientalists

1. They attention to 'form' and 'style' in Indian architecture, Indian sculpture and
painting did not gain favour as 'fine art' until the early decades of the twentieth
century and were considered useful mainly as visual records of the ("debased')
customs, manners, religious beliefs, and other aspects of India's past.

2. Indian sculpture was viewed through the lens of a classical Western standard
epitomized by the Greek arts of antiquity. Reaffirm the idea of India's
longstanding debt to culture of occident

Eg: A. Foucher's systematic stylistic analysis of Indian Gandhara sculpture

employed : visual idea, cross cultural influences, style (in absence of dates)
became the important tool of analysis of development of the gandharan
architecture.
 3. Emphasized derogatorily on the lack of 'realism' or 'naturalism," the absence of
a sense of perspective and proportion, the many heads and multiple arms of
divinities, animal-headed gods, explicitly sexual scenes on temple walls, and
such other representations.

4. While figural sculpture was severely criticized, abstract patterns and

architectural ornament were rated highly as representing the finest traditions in
handicrafts, meant to be carefully documented and emulated in British industrial
design and manufacture.

5. Most glaring omission of Orientalists: neglect of INDIAN TEXT N CONTEXT

which led to odd and incorrect speculations about origins and derivatives of
Indian architectural forms. Eg: Indian temples originated from Buddhist stupa

HENRY COUSENS who came in contact with Guajarati artisans has

demonstrated an interest in understanding the traditional basis of INDIAN AA-
didn't pursue further

The shared genesis of the modern disciplines of archaeology and art history in
nineteenth century India and the circumstances and motivations that determined the
early framework of Indian art history are discussed in this Volume by Upinder Singh and
Gautam Sengupta. In her contribution, “Archaeologists and Architectural Scholars in
Nineteenth Century India.

The gradual emergence of disciplinary boundaries between archaeology and

architectural history in an atmosphere of conflicting interests, ideologies,
political motivations and priorities, and the academic debates that were symptomatic of
the larger preoccupations of the period are revisited and candidly analyzed by Singh.

Alexander Cunningham: Know for excavations, Field, Archival Documentation system

and prioritizing inscriptions and numismatics data over evidence of art n
architecture.

He did write about large corpus of monuments as an ARCHEOLOGIAL SURVEYOR n

Director General of ASI

In understanding Indian Art and Architecture he has adopted a time based classification
terming the periods as Indo Scythians n Indo Sassanians etc.

Emphasized on the derivative nature of Indian Art

James Fergusson: Distinct in approach from Cunningham, James Fergusson, with a

clear focus on architectural history, attempted to understand Indian architecture in a
global context and through the comparative method.
 He documented and attempted to ‘read’ the monument to its last detail, treating it as a
‘fixed’ and hence the most reliable source of cultural interpretation.
FERGUSSON did a more precise documentation through: Comparative approach,
Lithographs, Drawings, Photographs, Macro surveys

Focused on
1. artistic n tech processes of its making
2. Period
3. Region styles
4. Myth n religion (serpent n tree worship)

Avowed believer of superiority of Anglo Saxon vis-a-vis the Asians. Convinced of the
progressive degeneration of the Indian art forms best being represented by the ancient
Buddhist architecture. The yardstick for judgment was always WESTERN.

Adopted RACIAL and RELIGIOUS classification of art periods.

Egyptian, Indian and Classical Greek architecture were true styles. In comparison to
IMITATIVE STYLE during the revival of Gothic n classical style
.................................
Nationalists

Nationalist response to colonial prejudices translated as a quest for researching the

1. ORIGINS,
2. RATIONALE
3. INNER MEANINGS
4. INDIANESS of the art forms
5. AESTHETIC APPRECIATION

To meet these, methodological approaches came to be rooted at first in SYMBOLISM,

ICONOGRAPHY, ICONOLOGICAL TEXTS during first half of 20th ce.
Search for meaning required an understanding of cultural context

Coomaraswamy was at the forefront of Nationalist historians.

1. Text-image relationship but his intrest in visual did not extend to understanding of style
per se. But representations that signified INNER MEANINGS almost reverberated with
SPIRITUAL QUALITY.
2. Inter relationship between creation, form, function and symbolism of Indian art.
3. Sometimes points orient n occident as theoretical binaries in evolving comparative
categories for analysis.
4. ORIGINAL NON DERAVATIVE NATURE of Indian art and Architecture and
emphasized on the notion of greater India eg: Buddha image based on yaksha
prototypes
5. Functional n technical processes that shaped VOCAB OF ART N ARCHI.
Eg: Encyclopaedia of Indian Temple Architecture (EITA) project, which was conceived
as early as 1967 and saw the publication of its first volume on the early temple
architecture of South India in 1983.

Arriving at an authentic technical vocabulary for temple architecture that doesn't merely
meet a nomenclatural obligation in defining the components of Indian temples but,
importantly, also addresses the structural, symbolic, and functional origins and
meanings of the terms and their usage in practice. In doing so, it provides a sound basis
for understanding the formalistic and stylistic

(Aarushi Verma – 1056)

Studies on Indian Paintings : Ajanta and Mughal paintings

When one hears the terms Indian paintings, she immediately thinks about the
Ajanta cave paintings of Maharashtra. Studies in the Indian paintings had
remained focused for a long time on Ajanta Cave paintings because of their
aesthetic qualities, narrative content and modes of narration. The Ajanta
Cave paintings were accidentally discovered by John Smith in 1819 and ever
since then there has been various historians and archaeologists who have had
different, ever – changing perceptions of these. All of these different, varied
perceptions had been noted by Mandira Sharma in her essay, “Disquisitions on
the Paintings of Ajanta”. The representation of the Buddhist Jatakas and the
ancient Indian life and customs in the paintings, their style of narrative art,
decorative and aesthetic elements generated interest amongst the archaeologists
like John Griffiths, Robert Gill and Lady Herringham but for the sake of
conserving these fragile pieces of art, they didn’t work directly on the actual
paintings but rather asked the artists to create their replicas for the investigation
and exploration. The continuation of the scenes in the paintings of Ajanta and
the telling and depiction of the story with the help of pictorial conventions are
some of the intriguing features of the Ajanta Cave paintings that have found
their place repeatedly in the Ajanta Cave historiography. Talking about Ajanta
historiography, Walter Spinks holds a special place in it, having devoted all his
energies in the intense research spanning over decades on the murals, paintings
and sculptures of the Ajanta, their political and social backdrop and the right
chronology.

The second area of interest in Indian paintings is the Mughal paintings, that
along with Ajanta Cave paintings find an earlier mention in the Indian art and
architecture historiography owing to the claim of European influence in these
works of art. The seventeenth and the eighteenth centuries Jesuit missionaries
accounts of these Mughal paintings shows a lack of empathy for the specific
and unique symbolism, iconography and cultural context and goes on to talk
about the European influence in these paintings with the sole purpose of finding
a means of establishing cultural superiority of the colonizers over their subjects
or the people of the lands they had conquered. For a long time, the Jesuit
missionaries accounts written in English, Dutch, Portuguese and Latin in the form
of travelogues, memoirs, journals, etc. remained the ultimate historical records for
understanding these paintings. Ursula Weekes’ essay, “Rethinking the
historiography of Imperial Mughal painting and its encounter with Europe”, finds
the relevance of the European influence in the Mughal paintings problematic and
stresses on the absolute need to focus on the indigenous and internal sources
like Ain - I Akbari and Tuzuk – I Jahangari, along with a wider group of other
sources such as poetry, Sufi texts, popular romances and Persian writings.
Another issue relating to the historiography of Mughal painting is the issue of
connoisseurship of Mughal art. In contrast to the paintings and sculptures in the
Renaissance Europe that were usually created by a single artist, hence focusing
on the very concept of individualism, the works of art here in Indian
subcontinent during the same period of time might have been collaborative
projects. However, in these collaborative projects of creating a work of art, the
master – apprentice relationship is clearly visible with the master leaving his
signature on the completed painting whereas the apprentice not getting the credit
for the said painting but just the knowledge and experience of creating one in
the future. The problem arises in this context when the perception of artist-
genius of the Renaissance Europe is being compared with the notion of artists
in pre- modern India, which of course were world apart from each other. S
Settar, R. N. Mishra and B.N. Goswamy has published their essays and papers
writing and talking extensively about the new notions of historiography of the
Mughal paintings by eliminating the twin problems of European influence in the
art and the comparison of these with its European counterpart at the time of
Renaissance. Still, the Mughal painting historiography lacks its true potential
owing to the lack of accessibility to collections that are resting in the private
safes and museums abroad and impact research.

The diversity of paintings belonging to other styles and regions, notably South
Indian mural paintings and manuscript traditions, Rajasthani and Pahari miniature
paintings, paintings of eastern and western Indian manuscript traditions and
Ladakhi paintings received attention relatively lately, for example we have
Coomaraswamy talking about the non – Mughal Northern Indian miniature
paintings under the head ‘Rajput’ paintings in 1916. 1968, we have C.
Sivaramamurti providing a comprehensive analysis of the early medieval and
medieval mural painting tradition of South India. This specific regional focus
approach of the historians in understanding the Indian paintings, seeks to
underscore the relevance and importance of the ‘Comparative’, ‘pan – Indian’,
‘cross- cultural’ and ‘global’ concepts in art historical studies and their moving
hand – in – hand for deeper understanding of any art form or style along with the
period and the region to which it belongs. Jain art, i.e., the art affiliated to
Jainism, for example, does not exist in isolation and is a part of a larger
artistic, historical and cultural milieu. Such a focus is clearly distinct in its
objectives and methods from the colonial legacy of segregating periods and art
histories on the basis of religion.

The element of ‘gender’, ‘sex’, ‘eroticism’ and ‘sexuality’ in ancient Indian

art and architecture.

The issue of spectatorship and representation of not just the female body but
even the male body and related concepts of gender and sex in the ancient and
medieval Indian art and architecture has been the area of lack of serious
research and study. Gendered issues of spectatorship and representation were
first addressed by Vidya Dehejia who questioned the rationale of applying
Western feminist critiques, given that much of ancient Indian art is encountered
in the Indian context. The presence, rationale, context, and function of erotic
sculptures on religious monuments have been treated at length by Davangana
Desai.
One religious monument depicting the erotic scenes of male and female
sexuality is the Khajuraho temple complex. The outer walls of the temple are
adorned with the nude sculptures of male and female bodies, showcasing erotic
scenes of having sex and love- making. These statues show how ancient Indian
society was open to sex. The temple and its erotic sculptures were constructed
in the 11th century by Chandela dynasty. In 1969, we see the construction of a
huge 30 feet naked statue of Yakshi in the Palakkad district of Kerela. The
statue is the epitome of female physical beauty and tries to add a newer
perspective in the display of female sexuality in Indian art and architecture but
outside any sacred or religious link. “Yakshi is the first such bold attempt to
bring the sculptures of women out of the walls of temples. So far, women
sculptures could be seen on the temples walls only,” said Kunhiraman, the
sculptor of Yakshi. Non- sacred erotic art as seen in early Indian terracotta,
offers yet another interesting field for research as does the display of femininity
in the Harappan art. Despite some new writings and fresh insights, the subject
of gender, sexuality, and erotica in Indian art is still a relatively unexplored field.