Search results for: 'HIGHPLAIN WEBSITE WITH THE HARRINGTONS, BIVINS , GEORGIA O'KEEFE INCLUDED'

Colonization is perhaps best understood as a process that unfolded over time than as a single historical event. In India and South Asia it began with the East India Company acquiring rights over land in different parts of the country, with the occasional political victories won on the battlefields. Since the Battle of Plassey (1757), their power over legislative and judicial matters grew steadily, backed by a strong military presence. Following the First War of Independence in 1857, the British Crown brought most parts of the Indian subcontinent under its direct rule, continuing to hold power until 1947.

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One of the most distinguished families in Bengal, the Tagores exercised unparalleled influence over the cultural landscape of the region. The Nobel Laureate, Rabindranath Tagore (1861 - 1941), and two of his nephews, Gaganendranath Tagore (1867-1938) and Abanindranath Tagore (1871 - 1951) were recognised as India’s National Art Treasure artists. Sunayani Devi (1875 -1962), their sister, is regarded as one of modern India’s first women painters known by name. Her lyrical paintings and embroideries often looked inward to an imagined world of fables and myths. At the turn of the twentieth century, we see Abanindranath emerging as the founder of the Bengal School as he envisioned a new Indian art that was free of colonial influence, rooted in pan-Asianism. Gaganendranath, on the other hand, was a prolific satirist and cartoonist, who imagined new forms and perspectives inspired by Cubism. Together they formed the influential Indian Society of Oriental Art in 1907, while Rabindranath’s school and university at Santiniketan would continue to shape modern art in Bengal for generations to come.

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The wash technique has come to be associated in India with the art of the Bengal School, but the story of its origins in India takes us back to an era of rich cultural exchanges. In the early twentieth century artists like Abanindranath Tagore were trying to imagine a pan-Asian cultural identity, and they turned for inspiration to traditions from across Persia to Japan. Rabindranath Tagore's friendship with Okakura Kakuzō occasioned the arrival of several Japanese artists in Kolkata, such as Yokoyama Taikan, Hishida Shunsō and Katsuta Shōkin. While the latter found inspiration in the Hindu epics, artists in Bengal adapted techniques that were used by the Japanese, such as the wash technique or the subtle use of ink and brush. Since then, the wash technique has been interpreted widely by individual artists, offering an ethereal quality of light to their works, or, in some cases, like for Gaganendranath Tagore and Prosanto Roy, new possibilities of painting in various shades of darkness.

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DAG has been a pioneer in curating exhibitions that have historical significance. These have ranged from themes around different genres and art movements to artist retrospectives as well as engagements with forgotten masters. Most exhibitions are sourced from its own inventory and in recent years DAG has begun to explore eighteenth and nineteenth century art and artists in addition to its presence as a stakeholder of twentieth century art. Exhibitions are routinely organised at its galleries in New Delhi, Mumbai, and New York, as well as in collaboration with museums and other institutions. All exhibitions are accompanied by well researched and designed books, adding considerably to the documentation of Indian art history.

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Nine artists find special mention in India as ‘art treasures, having regard to their artistic and aesthetic value’, a directive by the Archaeological Survey of India in the 1970s. Spanning a period of one hundred years of art practice, these artists represent a diversity of art traditions and movements but are unified by one common thread: a return to Indian roots through context, theme, subject, and an engagement with identity.

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Maiya and Musui—the thinly-fluted male and female bronze figures, often swaying or leaping in joy—are perhaps as well-known as their creator, K. S. Radhakrishnan. One of the most significant contemporary sculptors, Radhakrishnan often refers to the bronze characters as his alter egos. Learn More

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2020 marks a special year in mankind’s history and India’s destiny. Often used in reference to development goals, 2020 has taught us to never take things for granted. While humanity has made major leaps, even conquering outer space, nature has shown us how little we know about it, and how little we appreciate what we have. 2020 has taught us to review our values. We have suffered but also been comforted, and we have learned to acknowledge that irrespective of our joys and sorrows, our triumphs and our failures, the world will not stop, it will go on. Husain Rabin Mondal Santosh Jehangir Sabavala Mohan Samant Swaminathan Paramjit Paramjeet Ramgopal Vijaivargiya Seal Singh Dasgupta Haren Das Shanti Dave Jagadish Dhanapal Dhurandhar Bipin Behari Goswami Laxma Goud George Keyt Ara Nandalal Bose Jyoti Bhatt Natvar Bhavsar Eric Bowen Shobha Broota Avinash Chandra Sanat Chatterjee Shiavax Chavda Hebbar Khemraj Krishen Khanna Walter Langhammer Jeram Patel Aroomogam Pillay Raza Reddy Jamini Roy Vasudev Viswanadhan Manu Madhvi Parekh Laxman Pai Dhirendra Narayan Dharamanarayan.

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Samuel Bourne (1834—1912) was a British photographer known for his prolific seven years' work in India, from 1863 to 1870. Landing first at Madras, then Calcutta, he travelled across the subcontinent—leading some of the earliest photographic trips to the Himalayas—and wrote about his first impressions of the places he visited.

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Often described as ‘Poetry in Stone’, the Taj Mahal was laid out between 1631-43 by Mughal Emperor Shah Jahan as a mausoleum for his wife Mumtaz Mahal. It is the architectural elements of the Taj complex that grab the most attention, but in fact the garden is the heart of the complex . The visitors today are so transfixed by the Taj itself that they remember very little of the garden. DAG Archive attempts to illustrate the  life and ‘afterlife’ of the Taj gardens, once its control was taken over by the British. This archive deep dive showcases the objects from A. E. P. Griessen’s (1875–1935) collection.

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