Alchi and Tabo: An Aesthetic Voyage of Indo Tibetan Painting

An Aesthetic Voyage of Indo Tibetan Painting`: Alchi and Tabo unfolds a fascinating world of Indo Tibetan paintings adorned in the early Buddhist temples of the western Trans Himalayas, the region bordering Tibet. The extensive research, in the most difficult and land locked terrain until recent times, was carried out to identify and document the meticulous details of paintings that carried the significant influence of various connecting regions resulting in a significant aesthetic form. The book carries a realistic approach on the stylistic modes of paintings that emerged in the virgin space that was documented meticulously, analysed scientifically and appreciated aesthetically, since 1976 onwards. The well organised with illustrations, the text deals with a mature style which records its transformation into another aesthetic expression before declining in its own native land. More over, the emphasis is laid on the cohesive progression of the art tradition forming in a geographical area which may really be called a melting pot of cross-cultures. Evolution of the style, dealt in the book, shed light on the important components that developed in the background of a more eclectic, generous but heterogeneous socio-cultural millieu encircling the region of ancient Kashmir, Western Tibet, and Western Central Asia with a network of Silk Route. The visual culture in form of painting, preserved in the ancient temples of Alchi and Tabo do not only document the socio-cultural and religious ties with India, at the time of second diffusion of Buddhism in the land of snow, but it carries a statement of human genius that was evolving on more liberal and cross-cultural attitude of medieval society in a rugged and complex territory in a larger context, which set a new paradigm in the contemporary economic globalisation.