The Making of a New 'Indian' Art: Artists, Aesthetics and Nationalism in Bengal, c. 1850–1920

by Tapati Guha-Thakurta

• ISBN13: 9780521052733
• ISBN10: 0521052734
• Edition: Revised
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2007-12-03
• Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Summary

This book offers a path-breaking analysis of the transformations that occurred in the art and aesthetic values of Bengal during the colonial and nationalist periods. Tapati Guha-Thakurta moves beyond most existing assumptions and narratives to explore the complexities and diversities of the changes generated by Western contacts and nationalist preoccupation's in art. She examines the shifts both in the forms and practices of painting as well as in the ideas and opinions about Indian art during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.

Table of Contents

List of illustrations

Photographic acknowledgements

Abbreviations

Glossary

Preface

Introduction

Artisans, artists and popular picture production in nineteenth-century Calcutta

The art-school artists in Calcutta: professions, practice and patronage in the late nineteenth century

Indigenous commercial enterprise and the popular art market in Calcutta: the emergence of a new Indian iconography

Tradition and nationalism in Indian art: art-histories and aesthetic discourse in Bengal in the late nineteenth century

Orientalism and the new claims for Indian art: the ideas of Havell, Coomaraswamy, Okakura and Nivedita

The contest over tradition and nationalism: differing aesthetic formulations for 'Indian' painting

Artists and aesthetics: Abanindranath Tagore and the 'New School of Indian Painting'

Epilogue: the twenties

Bibliography

Index

Table of Contents provided by Publisher. All Rights Reserved.