Traditional Arts of South Asia

South Asia is well known for its vibrant visual culture, with a rich artistic tradition that stretches back over two millennia. Traditional Arts of South Asia: continuity in contemporary patronage and practice examines the challenges of modernity to the development, understanding and practice of the traditions of architecture, sculpture, textiles and paintings of South Asia in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Included are studies of traditions of art in India and Sri Lanka in the context of the nineteenth century British Arts & Crafts Movement; the production and consumption of block-printed cloth and other textiles in western India; the impact of modern technology on the mass reproduction of Hindu imagery; tradition and innovation in the practice of bronze-casting and temple painting in south India; and the patronage and design of religious architecture, both Hindu and Islamic, in modern South Asia. The papers included are by a distinguished group of eleven scholars and practitioners of traditional arts from India, Pakistan, Britain and the United States. About the volume editor - Crispin Branfoot, PhD, is Senior Lecturer in South Asian art & archaeology at SOAS, University of London. He is the author of Gods on the Move: architecture and ritual in the south Indian temple (2007) and co-author with Roger Taylor of Captain Linnaeus Tripe: photographer of India and Burma, 1852-1860. Contents: Contributors 8; Acknowledgments 9; 1 Introduction • Crispin Branfoot 10; Colonialism and the Traditional Arts 34-77; 2 British interventions in the traditional crafts of Ceylon (Sri Lanka) c1850~1930 • Robin D Jones 34; 3 Crafts as art in late colonial India: artisans, creativity, and colonial policy, 1880~1920 • Abigail Mcgowan 56; Textiles in Western India 78-109; 4 Cloth and community: The local trade in resist-dyed and block-printed textiles in Kachchh district, Gujarat • Eiluned Edwards 78; 5 The work of the Khatris of Kachchh: ajrakh and block-printed textiles • Ismail Mohammad Khatri with Eiluned Edwards 96; Modernity and Hindu Visual Culture 110-147; 6 The contemporary Hindu shrine: Between the cultic and the exhibitory space • Jyotindra Jain 110; 7 From temple to mantelpiece: Changing paradigms in the art and craft of south Indian metal icons • Sharada Srinivasan 124; Temple Arts in Contemporary South India 148-193; 8 Popular religious imagery at Kumbakonam • Anna L Dallapiccola 148; 9 Shapes of identity and time: A ‘royal’ temple in contemporary south India • Samuel K Parker 168; Traditional Architecture and Modernity 194-207; 10 Continuing tradition: Islamic architecture in modern Pakistan • Kamil Khan Mumtaz 194; 11 Approaching history through design and design through history • Adam Hardy 208; General Bibliography 229; Index 241 Contributors with bionotes • Crispin Branfoot, Senior Lecturer in South Asian Art and Archaeology, SOAS, University of London. Former Senior Research Fellow at De Montfort University. • Anna L Dallapiccola, former Professor of Indian Art, Heidelberg University and Visiting Professor at De Montfort University. • Eiluned Edwards, Reader in Global Cultures of Textiles and Dress at Nottingham Trent University. Former Senior Research Fellow at De Montfort University, Leicester. • Adam Hardy, Professor of Asian Architecture at the Welsh School of Architecture, Cardiff University. Former Professor of South Asian Architecture at De Montfort University. • Jyotindra Jain, former Professor of Art and Aesthetics, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi and Director of the Crafts Museum, New Delhi. • Robin D Jones, Associate Professor, School of Art, Design and Fashion, Southampton Solent University. • Ismail Mohammad Khatri, traditional artist, Dhamadka, Gujarat. • Abigail McGowan, Associate Professor, Department of History, University of Vermont. • Kamil Khan Mumtaz, architect and director of Anjuman Mimaran, Lahore, Pakistan. Formerly Professor and Head of Department of Architecture, National College of Arts, Lahore. • Samuel K Parker, Associate Professor, University of Washington, Tacoma, USA. • Sharada Srinivasan, Professor, National Institute of Advanced Studies, Bangalore.