This is not a general survey of the Art of the Sikhs, but a serious, meaningful inquiry into some of the most significant aspects of the subject. Explored in it, through a wide range of works of art and other artifacts – paintings and drawings, textiles, arms, jewellery, coins, among them – are ideas that run, like a golden thread, through Sikh are and thought, Starting with Guru Nanak’s Encounters, as outlined in the Janamsakhis – traditional accounts of the life of Guru Nanak – and Portraits of the Gurus, from Guru Nanak to Guru Gobind Singh, the book, like the exhibition to which it serves as a catalogue, moves from Piety, through the theme of Valour, to that of Splendour, ending with the Earthiness that one associates with the Sikhs and the Punjab. Some exceptional objects, all drawn from Indian collections, are featured here, each of them described and interpreted with care and sensitivity.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR B.N. Goswamy
B.N. Goswamy, distinguished art historian, was till recently Professor of Art History at the Punjab University, Chandigarh. A leading authority in the field of Indian painting, his work has been of seminal importance both to the studies of Pahari painting and painting in the Punjab. Among the most significant of his published works are: Pahari Painting, The Family as the Basis of Style (Marg, 1968); Pahari Paintings of the Nala Damayanti Theme (Delhi, 1975); Essence of Indian Art (San Francisco, 1986); Wonders of a Golden Age (Zurich, 1987); Pahari Masters: Court Painters of Northern India (Zurich, 1992); Indian Costumes in the collection of the Calico Museum of Textiles (Ahmedabad, 1993); and Nainsukh of Guler: A great Indian painter from a small Hill State (Zurich, 1997). His most recent work, Painted Visions: The Goenka Collection of Indian Painting, was published by the Lalit Kala Akademi earlier this year. Professor Goswamy has been visiting Professor at the Universities of Heidelberg, Zurich, Pennsylvania, California at Berkeley, California at Los Angeles, and Texas at Austin, and has lectured extensively both in Europe and the U.S., and in India. He has also been responsible for major exhibitions of Indian art in Paris, San Francisco and Zurich.
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