Ragamala Paintings from India

by Dallapiccola, Anna L.; Glynn, Catherine; Skelton, Robert

• ISBN13: 9780856676987
• ISBN10: 0856676985
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2011-12-15
• Publisher: Philip Wilson Publishers

Summary

Ragamala is a unique form of Indian miniature painting developed by combining a variety of sources including musical codes and accompanying poetry to indicate the time of day, or season, in which the melody should be performed. This new book, and the exhibition it accompanies, presents a fine and rare collection of twenty-four ragamala from the collection of Claudio Moscatelli. They are highly colored, very delicate, and beautifully executed miniatures dating from 1605 to c.1770. The book establishes the importance of ragamala's place in the history of world art and celebrates its literary content, its association with music and its regional styles, and provides an interpretation of its symbolism in a way that makes it accessible to a contemporary audience. Published in association with Dulwich Picture Gallery and Brighton Museum & Art Gallery.

Author Biography

Anna L. Dallapiccola, formerly Professor of Indian Art at the South Asia Institute of Heidelberg University, was appointed Honorary Professor at Edinburgh University in 1991. Her monograph, The Great Platform at Vijayanagara, will be publishing shortly. Catherine Glynn is an independent curator and lecturer in Indian art and recipient of the 2009 Award for Museum Scholarship presented by the American College of Art Association for the catalogue and exhibition, Garden and Cosmos: Indian Painting from the Jodhpur Royal Collections. Robert Skelton O.B.E. was Keeper of the Indian Department at the Victoria and Albert Museum from 1978 to 1988. He has published extensively in the fields of Indian miniature painting and decorative arts of the Sultanate and Mughal periods.

Table of Contents

Forewords * Map * Ragamala painting, a brief introduction * Ragamalas in the Deccan and what happens when ragas migrate without their texts * The Moscatelli Rajput and Pahari Ragamalas * Plates * Ragamala systems * Painters’ system ragamala * Kshemakarna’s ragamala * Glossary * Bibliography * Index