Art For A Modern India, 19471980 (Objects/Histories)

Product Description Following Indias Independence In 1947, Indian Artists Creating Modern Works Of Art Sought To Maintain A Local Idiom, An Indianness Representative Of Their Newly Independent Nation, While Connecting To Modernism, An Aesthetic Then Understood As Both Universal And Presumptively Western. These Artists Depicted Indias Precolonial Past While Embracing Aspects Of Modernisms Pursuit Of The New, And They Challenged The Wests Dismissal Of Nonwestern Places And Cultures As Sources Of Primitivist Imagery But Not Of Modernist Artworks. Inart For A Modern India, Rebecca M. Brown Explores The Emergence Of A Selfconscious Indian Modernismin Painting, Drawing, Sculpture, Architecture, Film, And Photographyin The Years Between Independence And 1980, By Which Time The Indian Art Scene Had Changed Significantly And Postcolonial Discourse Had Begun To Complicate Midcentury Ideas Of Nationalism.Through Close Analyses Of Specific Objects Of Art And Design, Brown Describes How Indian Artists Engaged With Questions Of Authenticity, Iconicity, Narrative, Urbanization, And Science And Technology. She Explains How The Filmmaker Satyajit Ray Presented The Rural Indian Village As A Socially Complex Space Rather Than As The Idealized Site Of Authentic India In His Acclaimed Apu Trilogy, How The Painter Bhupen Khakhar Reworked Indian Folk Idioms And Borrowed Iconic Images From Calendar Prints In His Paintings Of Urban Dwellers, And How Indian Architects Developed A Revivalist Style Of Bold Architectural Gestures Anchored In Indias Past As They Planned The Ashok Hotel And The Vigyan Bhavan Conference Center, Both In New Delhi. Discussing These And Other Works Of Art And Design, Brown Chronicles The Midtwentiethcentury Trajectory Of Indias Modern Visual Culture. Review [R]Ecommended For Libraries With Graduate Programs In Art History And For Others Looking To Expand Their Modern And Nonwestern Art History Collections. Melissa Aho,Arlis/Na Reviewsan Interesting Contribution, This Book Will Be Useful In General And Undergraduate Libraries. Summing Up: Recommended. Lowerlevel Undergraduates Through Faculty/ Researchers; General Readers. E. Findly,Choicebringing Together A Range Of Disparate But Linked Examples, Brown'S Text Makes For Stimulating Readingan Essential Text For Any Student Of The Arts, Postcolonialism, And The Interaction Of Science And Arts In The Postcolonial Context. Aparna Sharma,Leonardorebecca Browns Elegant And Conceptually Driven Account Of Modernism Focuses On The Decades Following Independence. . . . Browns Approach Is Highly Satisfying. By Cutting Across Media And Juxtaposing Artists Whose Aesthetic Commitments And Backgrounds Are Presented As Incommensurate Within The Internal Debates Of The Indian Art World, Brown Challenges The Specialist. But She Also Gives The General Reader An Overarching Sense Of What Conceptual Problems Faced Indian Artists And, Just As Importantly, Why Those Problems Emerged As Such. It Is A Particularly Fitting Approach For A Period Of Art History That Is Dominated By Studies Focusing On Single Artists, Artist Groups, And Institutions. Karin Zitzewitz,Art Historyrebecca M. Brown Weaves A Rich And Layered Narrative Of Indian Postindependence Art, Connecting Painting With A Wide Range Of References That Include The Architecture Of Charles Correa, The High Cinema Of Satyajit Ray, And The Demotic Art Of Bollywood. All The While She Balances Theoretical Sophistication With Penetrating Insights Into The Singular Achievements Of These Artists As They Negotiate The Predicament Of Local Versus Global Modernism. In The Process, She Unravels The Indebtedness Of Modernity To Colonialism. There Has Long Been A Crying Need For Such A Work, And Browns Pioneering Opus Fulfills This Admirably.Partha Mitter, Author Ofthe Triumph Of Modernism: Indias Artists And The Avantgarde, 19221947[R]Ecommended For Librar