The wood-based arts and crafts of Saharanpur are well-known the world over today for their hand-crafted workmanship and distinctive designs. This book attempts to establish a continuity of the art-movement in the Ganga-Jamuna Doab region. Effort has been made in the present work to systematically trace the origin of this art to the indigeneou roots and bring out the stages of its development through the course of history to its present position. In order to discover the roots of the art of wood-carving in the indigenous soil, strenuous field-exploration, collection and collation of diverse source-material, most of it of unconventional category had to be undertaken. It could be found that while the art of wood-carving has in the past remained largely confined to the structural embellishment of the aristocratic mansions of the wealthy merchants and nobles, in our times it found expression on small decorative and utilitarian items–furniture, toys, curio and novelty items, etc. The scope of this study has been extended further to the interiors of the mountainous north, where the architectural relics of the classical age still exist, so that a continuity of the classical art and architectural traditions may be established and a parallel drawn between the theme and style of the classical sculptural architecture of the yore and the carved wooden entranceways of the old havelis of Saharanpur. It is hoped that this work shall pave way for further and more exhaustive researches on this handicraft, and many other ones, in other regions of the country.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR Madhu Jain
Madhu Jain was educated at Connecticut College in the United States, following which she did her master’s in literature from Delhi University and studied French literature at the Sorbonne in Paris. In the seventies she worked as a reporter for the Statesman, moving towards the end of the decade to Sunday magazine to write on politics, foreign affairs and culture. She was also the New Delhi correspondent with the French national daily, La Croix, for a decade before she joined India Today in 1986, where she remained until 2000. Since then she has written for several publications, including Outlook and the Hindu, on contemporary life, art and cinema. She has curated two art exhibitions – Kitsch Kitsch Hota Hai on kitsch and the contemporary imagination and the other on the painter Viswanadhan. Madhu Jain lives in Delhi with her physicist husband Krishna Jain. They have two children.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR O C Handa
Born in Mandi (Himachal Pradesh) on 2nd October 1936, Dr. O.C. Handa is an outstanding scholar, connoisseur of art and a persistent adventurer. In his exploratory pursuits, he has successively undertaken several expeditions to the far-flung pockets in the Western Himalayan region upto the border of Tibet, mostly on foot. This underscores his interest and zeal in exploring antique but extant sources of history, art and culture of this region. Dr. Handa did his post-graduation in History from University of Mysore, Ph.D. from Meerut University and D.Litt. from Agra University – his speciality being the Buddhist Archaeology of the Western Himalayan region. Besides articles, research papers and radio and T.V. performances, he has numerous books on art, history and culture of the Western Himalayan region to his credit. Dr. Handa was a fellow of Himachal Academy of Art, Languages & Culture, Shimla during 1984-1986; of Indian Council of Historical Research, New Delhi during 1991-1993; and of Indian Institute of Advanced Study, Shimla during 1996-1998.
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