Rarely in the history of collecting art in India has a father-son duo remained involved for as long as the Bharanys of Amritsar and Delhi. This book tells the remarkable tale of the aesthetic adventure of two generations of Bharanys – Radha Krishna and his son Chhotelal, spanning over a century.
It begins with an essay by Pratapaditya Pal placing the role of the Bharanys in the wider context of collecting in this field. This is followed by Chhote Bharany’s personal recollections of learning the trade from his father, and his interactions with many of the leading scholars, experts, famous writers, museum directors and connoisseurs of the 20th century. Giles Tillotson explores Chhote Bharany’s aesthetic, emotional and spiritual response to art in the intellectual context of his time. In Part Two, experts on textiles and other arts each highlight one aspect of the collections, together covering items from as far afield as Himachal Pradesh, Kashmir, Bengal, Punjab, Kerala and Rajasthan. Showcasing the Bharanys’ personal collection and other objects donated to or purchased by museums, this book will be an eye-opener to those intrigued by how works of art are brought to light, how great collections are put together, and how such works are appreciated and understood.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR Giles Tillotson
Giles Tillotson trained in art history and Oriental studies at Cambridge University. He subsequently taught at the School of Oriental and African Studies ( London) where he was Reader in History of Art, specializing on India.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR Kapila Vatsyayan
Kapila Vatsyayan artist and art historian is internationally acknowledged as the pioneer of evolving alternate models of research for establishing inter and intra-relationship of different domains of knowledge and creativity. Her own work moves from a deep understanding of the primary textual sources of the East and West, principally Sanskrit and English, and a direct experience of the arts as performer. It focuses attention on the inter relationship of the concept and creative interpretation in architecture, sculpture, painting, music, and dance. The kinetic image enables her to delve deeper into the textual and oral sources and the fundamental metaphysics which govern form and structure of the arts. She has convincingly drawn attention to the sacred geometry which pervades all the Indian arts. As visualiser of the conceptual plan of the Indira Gandhi National Centre for the Arts, she leaps across many disciplines, questions the conventional boundaries and finally establishes several bridges of communication between traditional thought and modern science. This has resulted in many multi-disciplinary studies of space and time, nature and culture, man and society, chaos and order. Her holistic integral vision is explicit in the volumes she has edited on these subjects. Her first work, Classical Indian Dance in Literature and the Arts, is a milestone by experts the world over. This work was followed by many others including the definitive study of Dance in Indian Painting, The Theoretical Basis of Asian Aesthetic Traditions; Traditional Indian Theatre: Multiple Streams; six volumes on Gita Govinda; Bharata and the Natyasastra; and the Square and the Circle of the Indian Arts. She has edited the volumes on Concepts of Space: Ancient and Modern and Concepts of Time: Ancient and Modern published by the Indira Gandhi National Centre for the Arts, New Delhi.
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