Kashmiri Painting

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This is a pioneering study. Kashmiri paintings are to be found in impressively large numbers in public and private collections, and yet remarkably little has been written on them. As the author says in her Introduction to the present work: “A little like the thousand-petalled lotus of Indian myth, the art of Kashmir, especially its manuscript painting, has been more believed in than explored. The extent to which its roots extend, the sources from which it drew its nourishment, the direction of its growth across time, its texture, even the full, colourful range of its expanse, are but poorly known. In this exciting, richly illustrated work, then, Dr. Goswamy sets out not only to fill a serious gap in our information on painting by examining a wide range of manuscripts and folios lying in collections all over the world: she also analyses them with great care, sensitizing the reader to their many qualities. But this is also a timely study, a reminder, in these strife- torn days of Kashmir, of a better, more harmonious past. For in the painting of Kashmir, there is a unique fusion: so many artistic and historical strands come together, from the Buddhist wall-paintings of Alchi to the Islamic manuscripts of Iran on the one hand and the ‘Hindu’ work of the Pahari states on the other. Here, the work of the Kashmiri painters is viewed consistently against the background of the society which threw it up, and the issues related to assimilation and diffusion, production and patronage.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR Karuna Goswamy

Karuna Goswamy, Professor at the Panjab University, Chandigarh, is an historian whose work is distinguished by the use of materials and sources too often ignored by others. Gaining an understanding of the social impulses that the art of any given period mirrors, and using art as primary evidence, have marked virtually all her work. Author of two important studies, Vaishnavism in the Punjab Hills, and Pahari Painting (doctoral dissertation, Chandigarh, 1968), and The Glory of the Great Goddess: An Illustrated Manuscript from Kashmir in the Alice Boner Collection (Zurich, 1989), Dr. Goswamy has also published a large number of research papers. The present work was completed by her at the Indian Institute of Advanced Study, Shimla, where she was a Fellow for the years 1991-93. Currently she is engaged in an extensive research project on The Dussehra of Kulu: History and Development of a Cultural Phenomenon.

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Bibliographic information

Title
Kashmiri Painting
Author
Edition
1st. ed.
Publisher
ISBN
8173051607
Length
xviii+180, Plates; Bibliography; 29cm.
Subjects