India - Stuart Cary Welch

Home to two of the world's five great religions, Buddhism and Hinduism, the Indian subcontinent boasts an immensely rich and diverse cultural legacy. This text contains nearly 400 reproductions of India's masterpieces of sacred and court art, as well as examples of her lively urban, folk, and tribal heritages. It is the reissue of the catalogue published by The Metropolitan Museum of Art for their 1985 exhibition, "India: Art and Culture". Spanning six centuries, the bounty of Indian artifacts illustrated here includes bronze sculptures, ritual objects, and temple hangings from the classic Hindu culture in the south; exquisite manuscripts and works of decorative art from the Muslim courts of the Mughal emperors; the vibrant miniatures and dazzling weaponry of the Rajput world, representing a fusion of Hindu and Islamic traditions; and the art produced under the Raj in the 19th century, which assimilated Western influences. Indian art specialist Stuart Cary Welch has written a text which discusses each work in terms of the historical and cultural milieu in which it was created.