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Alice Boner Diaries: India 1934-1967

Apart from an insight into Alice Boner’s keen observation of Indian temple-architecture and art the present selection of her diary entries also depict the struggles of Alice Boner, the artist. In her work she strove to represent the spirit of India which her intensive experiences of over 40 years in the country revealed to her. Her experiences also included contact with personalities of the calibre of Rabindranath Tagore, Swami Laxman Joo, Sarojini Naidu, Ustad Alauddin Khan, and her admiration of Mahatma Gandhi. As a remarkable diarist Alice Boner puts her thoughts to pen in an elegant, eminently readable style. The reader feels with her the thrill and awe at the ancient monumental sights all over India, reads about her vision of the principles of sacred art, and shares with her the inner conflict of one torn between the two worlds of Europe and India. Over and over again this unique woman, with roots in the European culture, expresses her deep attachment to India. Most of the diary entries are in German and English and these have been retained for the sake of the originality of her fine expression, interspeersed with a selection of sketches from her vast repertoire. In addition, the German portions have been translated here for the benefit of English readers.

Despair and Modernity: Reflections from Modern Indian Painting

Dehejia has tried to create a place within the main frame of culture and philosophy of Indian art for a legitimate analytic theory called despair. Dehejia’s effort creates a space for the modern within Indian classicism by negotiating the philosophy of despair in classical terms. As a result the basic schism that has grown in recent years between the philosophy and history of modern art on the one hand and the philosophy and history of traditional arts is today cloder to being breached

Vastu: Astrology and Architecture: (Papers presented at the First All India Symposium on Vastu, bangalore, held on June 3-4, 1995)

Vastu Sastra an important limb of Jyotisa or astrology is an ancient science and study of architecture and engineering.

The present volume is an outcome of a symposium on Vastu. One of the goals of the symposium was to revive the lost glory of Vastu and show its relevance to modern times. The book covers different aspects of construction from planning to execution. It underline the role of Jyotisa astrology in Vastu principles.

The book will stimulate greater interest in ancient Vastu principles amongst modern architects and enginers and present them a new perspective which will raise their creativity to new untouched heights.

The book has been divided into three broad sections covering different aspects of Vastu Silpa-I. Vastu and its Relevance to Modern Times; II. Vastu and Jyotisa; and III. Vastu and Temple Architecture comprising thirty-three articles in all. Their contributors represent a range of viewpoints on Vastu principles. All write with intelligence and insight keeping in view its relevance with modern times needs of architecture and engineering.

Indian Sculpture: Ancient, Classical and Mediaeval

Anyone with an understanding of art in general and a knowledge, however slight, of Indian things, will, on being shown a work of Indian sculpture, unfailingly label it Indian. Differences in age and origin, however clearly marked to the discerning eye, when pointed out to the outsider, will be apprehended only with more or less difficulty. There is something so strong, and at the same time unique, in any Indian work of art that its ‘Indianness’ is felt first of all, and what it is, is seen only on second thought.

How this Indianness is expressed in terms of relation between line, surface, volume and other elements of visulisation is dealt with in this book. There are permanent qualities throughout the fabric of Indian sculpture which are discussed in detail. These essential qualities, all inter-related and inseparable, contain within their compass the life of Indian plastic art.

The book surveys the structure of Indian sculpture in its relevant aspects. The underlying and essential qualities are viewed in their permanency throughout the special conditions that the single monuments imply. Their outward connections, geographical and chronological, are seen to resolve themselves into ethical problems and those of the artistic process itself.

While stylistical investigations are the basis of this book, Indian sculpture is dealt with as conditioned by the Indian craftsman. His consciousness makes him known to himself as a part of nature and his work is the form of this ‘naturalism’. Its degree and aspects vary according to the levels of his consciousness.

The Muktesvara Temple in Bhubaneswar

The Muktesvara Temple in Bhubaneswar

About the Author(s)

WALTER SMITH

Symbols in Art and Religion: The Indian and the Comparative Perspective

Symbols in Art and Religion: The Indian and the Comparative Perspective

About the Author(s)

KAREL WERNER

The Art of Ajanta and Sopocani: A Comprehensive Study

Pauranic Prana-aesthetics, a finer shade different from that of Vitalistic aesthetics (the earlier having breathing-rhythm of “Kshaya- Vriddhi” – diminution and augmentation – other than the latter’s emphasis only on the rhythm of augmentation) has been delineated in this study with examples from the world’s two of the best art-monuments: Ajanta (India), now not remaining unknown even to the most casual connoisseur, and Sopocani (Yugoslavia), the most significant and monumentally beautiful work of Byzantine art.

Tracing Prana-aesthetics as the aesthetics of inner-light coded in the creeper-motif by the artists of Ajanta, this work emphasises decoding of the creeper-motif by Byzantine artists culminating into the frescoes of Sopocani done in Hellenistic Byzantine aesthetics beatified by Hesycast meditation to which that

of Buddhists was not unknown. Comparisons of various determinant aspects, aesthetics and artistic denominators, and constraints not allowing similar consummation are properly investigated to substantiate the thesis that Pranaaesthetics transfigures at Ajanta but transubstantiates at Sopocani. The significance of the anabolic aspects of this aesthetics is highlighted especially as a way out from the reductivistic tendencies of the present day visualarts straining them upto the stage of catabolic dissolution.

The Mystery of Art

The Mystery of Art lets the forms of art tell their own tale. Instead of analyzing the art expressions this narrative work invites the reader to re-discover the functions of art. The observation of the art-scenes starts with the present and winds its way backward through time and history. In the course of this journey the different art-expressions reveal themselves in a novel light.

About the Author(s)

D K Chandra

The Art of Ancient India: Buddhist, Hindu, Jain

To scholars in the field, the need for an up-to-date overview of the art of South Asia has been apparent for decades. Although many regional and dynastic genres of Indic art are fairly well understood, the broad, overall representation of Indiaês centuries of splendor has been lacking. The Art of Ancient India is the result of the authorês aim to provide such a synthesis. Noted expert Sherman E. Lee has commented: –Not since Coomaraswamyês History of Indian and Indonesian Art (1927) has there been a survey of such completeness.” Indeed, this work restudies and reevaluates every frontier of ancient Indic art _ from its prehistoric roots up to the period of Muslim rule, from the Himalayan north to the tropical south, and from the earliest extant writing through the most modern scholarship on the subject.

This dynamic survey-generously complemented with 775 illustrations, including 48 in full color and numerous architectural ground plans, and detailed maps and fine drawings, and further enhanced by its guide to Sanskrit, copious notes, extensive bibliography, and glossary of South Asian art terms-is the most comprehensive and most fully illustrated study of South Asian art available.

The works and monuments included in this volume have been selected not only for their artistic merit but also in order to both provide general coverage and include transitional works that furnish the key to an all encompassing view of the art.

An outstanding portrayal of ancient Indiaês highest intellectual and technical achievements, this volume is written for many audiences: scholars, for whom it provides an up-to-date background against which to examine their own areas of study; teachers and students of college level, for whom it supplies a complete summary of and a resource for their own deeper investigations into Indic art; and curious readers, for whom it gives a broad-based introduction to this fascinating area of world art.