This essay seeks to problematise the conception of folk art and craft traditions of scholars such as Ananda K. Coomaraswamy, who assume that while these are the repositories of India's ancient heritage, the practitioners of these crafts are humble vessels who pass them on faithfully without much understanding of their inherent meaning. Coomaraswamy's work may seem dated in comparison with contemporary scholarship in the field, but his ideas continue to inform how craft production is largely perceived. By focusing on the experimental work of one Chitrakar artist from West Bengal who tried to adapt her traditional style of pata (scroll) painting to the comics medium, I argue that it is the perspective used to study the folk arts that leads to the conception that folk artists are unreflexive and unable to generate new ideas on their own. Swarna Chitrakar, the artist whose work is presented here, belongs to a traditional community of picture storytellers. Her exposure to the comics medium in a workshop organised by a publisher of children's books led her to introduce some of its pictorial devices in her work, thereby enabling her to depict emotions in novel ways. I argue that it is by focusing on the work of individual artists as well as by including non-traditional spaces of production and performance within their fields of study, that scholars will be able to reconceptualise the folk arts as dynamic and contemporary, rather than as archaic and static.
Film song booklets or, more generally, cinema booklets have gained traction in recent years as archival resources contributing to the uncharted histories of Indian (and South Asian) cinema. They add to the rich repositories of cinema ephemera that underline the importance of extra-filmic material in writing such histories while focusing on themes of printing, circulation, consumption and thus the afterlives of films themselves. Beyond the immediate remits of film history, the cinema booklet/film song booklet, I argue, offers an 'intermedial scope' of understanding the relationship between visual, oral and aural dimensions of filmmaking and film-viewing. In this article, I focus on two such digitised collections from the British Library and the Victoria and Albert (V&A) Museum in London. It considers the cinema booklet not as standalone ephemera, but a vital connection in the changing landscape of visual art in India as it affords insights into those aspects of the societal that remain eclipsed.
This article aims to look at the contemporary neo-Vaishnavite style paintings of Assam which have their roots in the pre-modern age. An offshoot of the Indian Bhakti movement, neo-Vaishnavism was introduced in Assam in the 15th century ce. A simultaneous artistic movement of painting the Vaishnavite deities was witnessed, with such paintings being made in the same style even today in the 21st century. When one juxtaposes these contemporary artworks with the medieval paintings, it is obvious that there has been a transhistorical migration of the Vaishnavite themes and pictorial idioms. This indicates the possibility that it is not only images that are re-created but also their associated meanings of tradition and heritage, as well as their emotional and sensual responses which are attempted to be rekindled and evoked. At the same time, certain experiments, changes and therefore, fissures, in this continuing artistic practice reflect the role played by individual artists, consumers, cultural institutions and political and economic developments. Taking some of the contemporary Assamese neo-Vaishnavite paintings by current artists as a case study and studying the stylistic, materialistic and conceptual aspects of these artworks, this article comments upon the reciprocal relationship between art, artist and society.
This article brings out the combinatorial role of musical and material culture in the life of the Langas, a community of hereditary musicians from western Rajasthan (India). The struggle for identity on the one hand, and livelihood on the other, among Langa musicians, highlights the tension between continuity and change. While the preservation of traditional instruments and musical forms is vital for maintaining cultural identity, adapting to modern demands is necessary for survival. In this context, the materiality of their traditional instruments plays a crucial role, as it is through these tangible, inherited tools that their unique heritage and artistry are both expressed and sustained. Many of the hereditary instruments of the Langa community are on the verge of being overshadowed by popular musical instruments and global genres that are jeopardising the Langas' connection to their hereditary music. Ironically, the Langas' struggle for a secure present undermines the distinctiveness of their music in the future.
The figure of Hanuman has long occupied a central place in Hindu visual traditions as the protector and devoted servant of Ram. This article examines the emergence and proliferation of a distinctly angry Hanuman in the visual 'everyday', on stickers, flags and temple exteriors. Through close readings of its formal features, genealogy and circulation, it analyses how contemporary regimes of image production generate a dense field of divine prints marked by recursive repetition. Drawing on visual anthropology, sociology and affect studies, the article argues that the aesthetic labour performed by musculature enables anger to become a legible affect in this latest iteration. Building on scholarship centred around 'seeing as knowing', and 'interocularity', it places the ubiquity of angry Hanuman in the processes of Hindu identity formation and examines the force of its gaze in the public sphere. The article highlights technologies that expand religious patronage and the current ordering of the religio-political sensorium. Here, anger is theorised as an affective force circulating across surfaces and spaces, contributing to the structuring of affective publics, and not merely as an attribute of the deity.
It is only over the last three decades that sociology and social anthropology have taken seriously the photograph, its neglect due in part to methodological issues. In this paper, I look at how these visual narratives are to be viewed, understood and interpreted by the researcher, leading to conundrums of subject position, verisimilitude of an image and indeed, availability of visual material. My reading of photographs has led me to the conclusion that often, rather than confirm so-called conventional wisdom, the photograph can present additional information, and, in fact, in some cases, a counter-narrative. To illustrate my point, I discuss three very diverse universes-photographic representation of the 19th-century plague epidemic in India, a visual iteration of the civil war in Sri Lanka and the third, the domestic space of the matrimonial photograph and of changing marriage practices in India. I conclude that a reading of photographs can be infinitely significant for a researcher, even if sometimes these result in another, quite tangential-if not contrary-line of argument.
The article locates Indian modern and contemporary art developments within global practice. It demonstrates how shifts in patronage in the West, from that of the Church and nobility to an open market structure, led to the rise of modern art movements and later to the contemporary art period. It views the evolution of modern art in India in terms of a juxtaposition of influences of Western modern art and the colonial regime, together with indigenous traditions, as part of an attempt to forge a distinctive postcolonial identity. The article proceeds to discuss the characteristics of contemporary art as distinguished from modern art, particularly the influence of the genre of conceptual art, innovation in materiality and its growing shift towards sociopolitical art. It demonstrates how contemporary art in the West embraces an expansive set of media that includes site-specific installation, performance art, video, digital art and AI. The article argues that the style and character of contemporary art in India continue to be largely influenced by practices in the West owing to its colonial legacy, global orientation, nature of patronage and the market structure. It goes on to describe the diverse and innovative practices of Indian art practitioners. Finally, it outlines reasons for the contemporary art scenario in India becoming increasingly exclusive and elitist despite some good art practices.
Chhatris or cenotaphs, commonly associated with the Rajput nobility, were extensively commissioned by merchants in the Shekhawati region of Rajasthan from around 1830 to 1950. A study of these chhatris allows an insight into how the chhatri, as a mortuary monument, along with other painted buildings from the region, reflected and consolidated the identity of the merchant community after their engagement and prosperity in the colonial economy. This article discusses one of the most celebrated merchant chhatris from the Shekhawati region, the Ram Gopal Poddar Chhatri (1872 ce) from Ramgarh. Through an analysis of the chhatri's paintings and inscriptional evidence, while situating its commissioning within the history of a quintessential merchant town, this article sheds light on how these mortuary monuments established the nouveau elite status of merchants by referencing established mythological themes like the avatars of Vishnu, and markers of 'taste' like the ragamala paintings. Also discussed are motifs that become markers of merchant identity, such as the image of the saint Dadu Dayal, as well as depictions of merchant ships protected by divinities like Rama.
