Modern Indian Art Research Articles

A study on the portrayal of mythological hybrid forms in modern Indian art

Indian hybrid mythology, its historical context, its cultural connotations, and the ways in which Indian artists depict anthropomorphism in their works of Indian art and culture. Through an analysis of the artists' histories, ideologies, and methods, our research reveals how they have balanced innovation with tradition in their works. It demonstrates how artists use cultural themes, mythology, and folklore as inspiration to depict the intricacies of identity in society. The dissertation explores the impact of Indian hybrid forms and how they subvert societal norms that balance modernity and heritage in our culture. The research provides a thorough understanding of the rich Indian form and its significance on the international form arena by examining the techniques and symbols utilized by for designers and delving deeply into difficulties. In general, this study advances knowledge about hybrid form, its variety in India, and its relevance in the contemporary art scene.

Aesthetic of Light and Time: An Intellectual History of Pictorialism from India

Pictorialism emerged in the last quarter of the nineteenth century as a global aesthetic movement that argued for photography’s artistic status on par with other plastic arts more powerfully than ever. Archives from South Asia demonstrate the movement’s thriving life in the subcontinent with Calcutta emerging as a centre and its bilingual amateur photographer-writers as major participants simultaneously engaging in globally circulating specialist discourses on pictorialism and popular discussions of their practice aimed at public pedagogy. By looking into Bangla periodical press this paper investigates how Bengali pictorialists used popular Bangla magazines in the early twentieth century to establish their distinct voice regarding what counted as artistic photography as they engaged with a non-specialist mass readership. Mass-circulated Bangla articles were not vernacular translations of knowledge and practices produced in metropolitan locations and disseminated in transregional languages like English. Vernacular was an extension of Bengali amateur photographers’ participation in global photography, as they remained grounded in their historical specificity. These amateur photographers were bilingual intellectuals who wrote in English for a global public and in Bangla for a Bangla-reading publics and refraining from translating culture as they moved across languages. Indeed, articulations in vernacular didn’t mean a venularization of practice; they indicate plurality of belonging and affiliation that crafted the pictorialist aesthetic of the Bengali amateurs. By unpacking this intellectual history, this paper decenters the Euro-US-centric history of pictorialism towards writing an interconnected history of the artistic movement, while also complicating the category of modern Indian art.

CHOLAMANDAL ARTISTS’ VILLAGE: AN INTERACTION BETWEEN THE TRADITION AND MODERNITY (INDIA, THE MADRAS SCHOOL)

Based on the analysis of scientific literature, a successful example of an independent and self-organized community of Cholamandal artists was studied as a continuation of the artistic searches and experiments of the Madras school during the second half of the 20th – early 21st centuries. The prerequisites for the emergence and development of the Cholamandal commune headed by K. Paniker are analyzed. The activities of individual artists of the art association – painters (K. Paniker, R. Pooviah, T. Tarani), graphic artists (K. Haridasan, K. Ramanujam), sculptors (C. Patnaik, S. Nandagopal) and others are considered. The plot and thematic features of their achievements are clarified – the search for original interaction with folk, religious and tantric art is characteristic for these artists. The special position of folk art becomes one of the distinguishing features of the association’s activities. Traditions and their inheritance are seen as an important communicative part and as a source of experiments for modern practices, which, in turn, supported the cross-platform nature of Cholamandal. The settlement included not only workshops and an exhibition gallery, but also an open-air theater for dancing and theatrical performances, a textile workshop, a library and all the necessary infrastructure for everyday life. Cholamandal artists are known for their experiments with traditional Indian techniques and materials such as terracotta, bronze casting, a combination of fresco and oil painting. They combined these techniques with contemporary styles and themes to create unique works of art, reflecting the richness and complexity of India’s artistic tradition. The Cholamandal commune also played an important role in popularizing of modern Indian art among a wide audience. Art exhibitions and events held at Cholamandal attracted art enthusiasts and collectors from all over India and abroad and have helped bring Indian contemporary art to the attention of the global art scene.

Shakuntala: As Authored by Kalidas and Painted by Raja Ravi Varma

Mythology has always been an appealing area which has been engrossing readers and listeners since ages. Mythology plays distinctive roles and employs its sacred narratives, art and rituals to keep the values and morals of the society intact. This system of writing texts on mythology was common to the entire subcontinent and produced its own literature written in Sanskrit. One such magnum opus is Abhijnanashakuntalam authored by the great Sanskrit maestro, Kalidas. It is also important to note that mythology in the form of texts was accessible to a very limited class of people which included the elites, literates, scholars etc, and consequently a large section of the society remained unaware of these episodes and virtues. It is where, Raja Ravi Varma, ‘Father of Modern Indian Art’ is credited to bring these episodes in the form of both painting and printing to the commoners. This not only attracted a huge number of people towards mythology, Hindu culture and tradition but also urged to preserve values. The present paper is an attempt to study the contributions of the two maestros, Kalidas- as the author of Abhijnanashakuntalam and Raja Ravi Varma-as the painter of the Shakuntala Series, comparative studies of how both the maestros perceived the character of Shakuntala, portrayal of ‘beauty’, and how the play, painting and printing was appreciated, responses gathered and inspirations shared. Keywords: Kalidas, Raja Ravi Varma, Shakuntala, Mythology and Painting, Oleographs

Comparing the Traditional and Modern Indian Art Forms-A Study in Aesthetics

  This paper is discussing the combination and confluence of elements of contemporary art and various Indian arts. This paper shows the need and importance of contemporary art along with the importance of traditional art in the Indian social and cultural environment. The traditional art as carrier of Stya, Shiva, and Sundara, has importance in many ways in life. It makes us feel the fragrance of life in the mechanical world and it is successful in giving that pleasure which can easily enter the unconscious mind which is elaborately explained by the name of quantum physics or quantum mechanics. The importance of traditional art in the culture of a country lies in the fact that contemporary art also serves to connect global cultures. Contemporary art frees an artist from the shackles of time and space and elevates him to the heights of spirituality, making it important for the artist to understand both. Its separation from traditional art is the reason why contemporary art does not reach the hearts of ordinary people as deeply.

Returns on Indian Art during 2000–2013

The market for modern Indian art is an emerging art market, having come into a proper existence only in the late 1990s. This market saw tremendous growth in its initial years, then a downturn that started around 2007–2008. Using data from auctions conducted by a major Indian art auctioneer, we estimate via hedonic regression a price index for paintings and drawings by Indian artists sold during 2000–2013. We are able to thus estimate a rate of return on Indian art as an investment and also shed light on what drives the price of a painting in the Indian market.

Master of the Line:

Rabindranath Tagore emerged as an artist quite late in his life—in the late 1920s—but once he began to seriously pursue his new passion, he produced an astounding number of drawings, paintings and etchings that testify to his greatness as an artist, and his standing as a precursor of modern Indian art. Yet, Tagore did not offer any theory of art, neither did he write extensively on his own art beyond making occasional comments on his style and his satisfying pursuit of art. Still, a careful study of his writings on art does reveal a theoretical underpinning that appears predominantly romantic – with its emphasis on sublimity, beauty, truth, simplicity and universality. His vision of art however, accommodates his constantly evolving perceptions of art, and allows him, at times, to deviate from an earlier view or search for separate nuances within art practices of his time. A close look at Tagore’s art reveals that many of its defining characteristics lie outside the ideas that he propagates in his writings and lectures on art. The paper will examine these differences and try to understand how his art and aesthetics make a fine balance between tradition and innovation, while being sensitive to romantic aspirations and modernistic sensibilities.

A Retake of Sher-Gil's Self-Portrait as Tahitian

The nude figure in the painting Self-Portrait as Tahitian (1934) is striking in her composure; she is resolutely female, self-possessed, and full of repose (fig. 1). The artist—Amrita Sher-Gil, the part-Indian, partHungarian painter who stands at the cosmopolitan helm of modern Indian art—was apparently responding to Paul Gauguin’s stylization of the female nude, one of modernism’s master tropes for the colonial other, by inhabiting, with her own corporeality, this overburdened representational form. In her painting, “Tahitianness” takes the form of her own brown body, but it is also projected through her straight, black hair, which is tied in an unfussy ponytail, marking simplicity or indigenity as the absence of couture. I recall experiencing a sense of vertigo on first encountering this painting and the dizzying sets of questions it raised. What were the conditions that made possible such an account of Gauguin by a woman and a colonial subject in 1934? What precisely was meant by Sher-Gil’s selfconscious self-placement into the body of a Tahitian nude? How could art history have missed this painting, so deliberate a citation of art-historical precedent? And how could such far-reaching coordinates—Paul Gauguin in the 1890s, Amrita Sher-Gil in the 1930s, Paris, Tahiti, India, Hungary— be plotted onto our existing map of modernism’s unfolding in the twentieth century? Upon arriving in the subcontinent soon after completing this painting, Sher-Gil announced that “Europe belongs to Picasso, Matisse, Braque, and many others. India belongs only to me.”1 As the first Indian to receive art

Changing Landscapes: The Construction of Meaning and Value in a New Market Category—Modern Indian Art

Stable category meanings act as institutions that facilitate market exchange by providing bases for comparison and valuation. Yet little is known about meaning construction in new categories or how meaning translates into valuation criteria. We address this gap in a descriptive study of these processes in an emerging category: modern Indian art. Discourse analysis revealed how market actors shaped the construction of meaning in the new category by reinterpreting historical constructs in ways that enhanced commensurability and enabled aesthetic comparisons and valuation. Analysis of auction transactions indicated greater intersubjective agreement about valuation over time as the new category institutionalized.

Modeling On-Line Art Auction Dynamics Using Functional Data Analysis

In this paper, we examine the price dynamics of on-line art auctions of modern Indian art using functional data analysis. The purpose here is not just to understand what determines the final prices of art objects, but also the price movement during the entire auction. We identify several factors, such as artist characteristics (established or emerging artist; prior sales history), art characteristics (size; painting medium--canvas or paper), competition characteristics (current number of bidders; current number of bids) and auction design characteristics (opening bid; position of the lot in the auction), that explain the dynamics of price movement in an on-line art auction. We find that the effects on price vary over the duration of the auction, with some of these effects being stronger at the beginning of the auction (such as the opening bid and historical prices realized). In some cases, the rate of change in prices (velocity) increases at the end of the auction (for canvas paintings and paintings by established artists). Our analysis suggests that the opening bid is positively related to on-line auction price levels of art at the beginning of the auction, but its effect declines toward the end of the auction. The order in which the lots appear in an art auction is negatively related to the current price level, with this relationship decreasing toward the end of the auction. This implies that lots that appear earlier have higher current prices during the early part of the auction, but that effect diminishes by the end of the auction. Established artists show a positive relationship with the price level at the beginning of the auction. Reputation or popularity of the artists and their investment potential as assessed by previous history of sales are positively related to the price levels at the beginning of the auction. The medium (canvas or paper) of the painting does not show any relationship with art auction price levels, but the size of the painting is negatively related to the current price during the early part of the auction. Important implications for auction design are drawn from the analysis.

De l’Indochine a l’Afghanistan: des arts etrangers dans les bibliotheques Parisiennes

French interest in India and neighbouring regions dates back to the 17th century. Oriental studies developed as a distinct discipline through the 19th century, stimulated in France by French colonial activities in Indochina, and culminating at the end of the century in the emergence of Oriental art and archaeology as a subject in its own right. The Commission Archéologique de l’Indochine was established in 1898, and became the Ecole Francaise d’Extrême-Orient (EFEO) in 1901 with responsibility for listing and protecting antiquities in the French colonies; its library in Paris constitutes a major resource. France’s relationship with Afghanistan facilitated French archaeological activities in that country until 1975; archaeological finds enabled the Musée Guimet to extend its scope and to become a museum of Asiatic art, and its library became and remains the major library in Paris so far as Asian art is concerned. The library of the Ecole du Louvre supports courses on Asian art, while the Bibliothèque Nationale and such libraries as the Bibliothèque Forney also contain valuable collections. Photographic collections in some of these institutions have not been so well looked after as books, and their condition is a matter of concern. Unpublished archival materials are also held in some of the same institutions. The resources of a number of smaller, specialised institutes are currently being brought together in a new building under the name ‘Institute d’Asie du Collège de France’, while some other collections are being linked with the library of the EFEO to create a ‘Bibliothèque d’Asie’. Meanwhile it remains to be seen whether the new Bibliothèque Nationale des Arts will include the arts of Asia within its scope. No library in France has responsibility for modern Indian art. (An English translation follows the text in French).

A Memoir on the Work of a Painter in India

The painter traces the development of his work in his native India from his childhood depictions of his immediate surroundings to his present-day semi-abstract symbolical expressionist paintings that reflect his emotive reactions to his milieu. He also discusses the relevance in his development of modern Indian art ranging from the works of Raja Ravi Varma (1848–1900), who introduced Western schools of figurative drawing and oil painting, to those of his contemporaries who have been influenced by Western non-figurative art.

The Mount Pisgah (U.S.) Stone Carvings

THE number of NATURE dated June 15 (p. 160) contains some statements relating to the curious stone carvings discovered by Mr. M. S. Valentine in the neighbourhood of Mount Pisgah, North Carolina, and now exhibited by him in Europe. Before leaving the United States, Mr. Valentine brought his specimens to Washington, in order to have them examined by Prof. Baird, the Director of the United States National Museum, and by myself. I am therefore enabled to express an opinion concerning them. Having been for many years in charge of the largest existing collection of North American antiquities, I can safely assert that they are totally abnormal in character, that is, unlike any pre-Columbian stone carvings thus far found in the United States. They neither show the characteristics of the stone sculptures discovered in mounds, nor do they resemble the well known specimens of modern Indian art. In short, they are not typical at all, unless, indeed, we deem them sufficiently, important to form a type for themselves. Such an importance, however, I cannot concede to them, believing that they originated in comparatively modern, certainly in post-Columbian, times, and were made by a few individuals of the Indian, or, perhaps, even of the Caucasian, race. The rude attempts at imitating animals of the Old World are conclusive evidences that the makers either had seen such animals, or knew at least that they existed.