AN INTRODUCTION TO

INDIAN ART

Textbook in Fine Artsfor Class XI

PART I

2020-21

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ISBN- 978-93-5007-187-8

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FOREWORD

The National Council of Educational Research and Training(NCERT) has constantly been working for the past fiftyyears to bring in an impact on the country’s schooleducational system. In the recent years, specially with theNational Curriculum Framework (NCF) - 2005, there has beena significant shift in the development of textbooks, theirpresentation and inter-disciplinary approach, the typologyof exercises, etc. All these efforts have made the textbookschild friendly. At the senior secondary stage, which is alsothe school leaving stage, students should have more optionsto move further in different fields of higher education orprofessional education. With this view, the NCERT for thefirst time took the initiatives of developing the curriculumand syllabi in different art related areas for this stage.

At this stage of education, the emphasis has been givento a professional approach towards the subject of Fine Artsmaking it a discipline rather than on creating awarenessand knowledge, which was generic in nature till secondaryclasses. The teaching objectives also shift towardssharpening of skills in fine arts and develop a perspectiveof design and instead of free expression and doing artsemphasis is on students’ expressing themselves in theirown style and medium. Also, there has been a need todevelop a historical perspective of art in context of theworld as well as India. Art History is a part of studies ofarts and in itself it is a major area of education from whichstudents learn about their cultural heritage.

It was observed that many of the education boards offerFine Arts as an optional subject at the senior secondarystage which includes painting, sculpture, applied arts orcommercial arts. These were reviewed and a new syllabuswas formed. Since this course apart from the practicalcomponent include theory which introduces students tothe art historical heritage of country’s diverse art andarchitecture, the textbook ‘An Introduction to Indian Art’has been developed for Classes XI and XII.

The textbook for Class XI extensively covers the traditionof cave paintings in the pre-historic era and theircontinuation in mural paintings of Buddhist era and later

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on in various parts of the country, Buddhist, Jain andHindu sculptural and architectural developments. Duringthe Indo-Islamic period and before the Mughal rule,another era dawned upon India, which saw massiveconstructions in the form of forts and palaces. Differentaspects of all these styles have been discussed to introducestudents with the fabric of India’s culture.

The NCERT appreciates the hard work done by theTextbook Development Committee responsible for makingthis book. We wish to thank the Chief Advisor for thistextbook, Professor Ratan Parimoo, Retired Head,Department of Art History and Dean, Faculty of Fine Arts,M. S. University of Baroda, for guiding the work of thiscommittee. It was a challenge for other art historiansinvolved in making of this textbook for students at theschool level and their efforts are praiseworthy. We areindebted to the institutions and organisations which havegenerously permitted us to draw upon their resourcematerials and personnel. We are especially grateful to themembers of the National Monitoring Committee, appointedby the Department of Secondary and Higher Education,Ministry of Human Resource Development under theChairpersonship of Professor Mrinal Miri and ProfessorG.P. Deshpande, for their valuable time and contribution.As an organisation committed to the systemic reform andcontinuous improvement in the quality of its products,NCERT welcomes comments and suggestions which willenable us to undertake further revision and refinement.

Director

New Delhi National Council of EducationalSeptember 2012 Research and Training

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PREFACE

During the nineteenth century (the period of British rule),a few British colonial officers took active interest to studyIndia’s past in collaboration with some Indian scholars andit is out of such endeavours that a systematic study ofarchitectural monuments, sculptures and paintings beganin the Indian sub-continent. The first attempt in this regardwas to document the monuments as they represented avery visible evidence of the bygone era. Over a period oftime with the archaeological explorations and excavations,many art-historical sites were discovered. Deciphermentof inscriptions and study of coins played a significantrole in our understanding of the past art traditions. Withthe study of religious texts, history of religion was studiedand identification of icons/sculptures and paintings wasinitiated, which became a dominant area of earlyscholarship. Study of art history has developed inassociation with the archaeological studies, however, it isnow recognised as a specialised discipline. In the West,mainly in Europe, the art-historical discipline has grownconsiderably with numerous methodological inputs,whereas in India it is still in the process of developing itsinvestigating mechanisms.

As the study of art history has grown out of extensivedocumentations and excavations, one finds description ofart objects as a prominent method of study. There are afew significant studies of the early twentieth century, wherethe concerns are addressed beyond mere description.Subsequently, several generations of outstanding Westernand Indian scholars of Indian art history have studied thesubject at great depth making us realise the glorious pastof the Indian civilisation through its creations reflected inthe architectural monuments, sculptures and paintings.We can claim a distinct Indian approach to the arts of thebuilding edifices, the sculpture making and the languageof painting in comparison with the European art on onehand and the far Eastern art on the other. Therefore, theIndian art historical studies have emerged as a prestigiousacademic discipline at a university level education.

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The stylistic features of various monuments andsculptures have been attributed to the dynastic affiliations,like the Mauryan art, Satavahana art, Gupta art, etc.Alternatively, the periodisations of art follows religiousdenominations, such as the Buddhist, Hindu and Islamicperiods. However, such deterministic nomenclatures areonly partially useful for understanding the art traditions.

Often the study of art objects is based on two importantapproaches, (i) formalistic or stylistic analysis and(ii) content and contextual studies. The first categoryinvolves the study of formalistic characteristics ofarchitecture/sculpture/paintings, whereas, the secondcategory concentrates at various levels of content analysis,which has several components, such as iconographic study,iconology, narrative and semiotics.

Iconography involves identification of images throughcertain symbols/signs and relevant myths or narrativeepisodes, whereas, iconology involves the study of theevolution of such signs and symbols in its historical, socialand philosophical context. Today, the methodologicalframework tries to explore various concerns and issues inthe process of art productions and attempts to go beyondthe traditional meanings. It may be observed that thepolitical intentions of various religious ideologies are yet tobecome a part of the larger investigative process. Religiousideologies were also instrumental in shaping the socialand economic formulations in ancient India. Therefore, itbecomes important to study such factors that haveinfluenced art forms. Large body of material has come fromthe religious sites but it does not mean that there was noart in non-religious domains. Terracotta figurines are thebest examples in this category, however, due to spaceconstraint they have been only mentioned but not extensivelydiscussed. In the present text, the authors have tried tomove away from the normative traditional descriptive writingsto broader development of art and architectural monumentsin terms of their stylistic developments, as well as, theirsocial and political affiliations.

Cultural manifestations have diverse ideologies in theform of architecture, sculpture and paintings. They needto be studied with their religious and social viewpoints,hence, unilinear projection of the cultural tradition needsto be reconsidered as it is away from realities of the ancientpast. Different categories of artisans existed in the actualworking situation. A guild of artisans may have beenemployed by the religious and political authorities formaking monuments and accordingly the artisans had towork and devise their execution techniques along with

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necessary innovations, etc. In this textbook only anintroductory outline has been attempted from pre- andproto-historic times till the times of the Islamic monumentsduring the late medieval period.

Considering the level of the young generation readersbelonging to the higher secondary stage, the present bookoutlines a few examples to create an understanding of thenature of developments in Indian art. It is not intended todiscard such examples which we know are important butall the contributors have made a conscious attempt topresent convincing holistic pictures. The chapters in thebook provide an outline of different forms of arts from mostof the regions of the country.

Human civilisation begins with the emergence of thehuman beings on the earth. In this book, a simpler but atthe same time a distinct vocabulary has been introduced.The idea is not only to present the vast amount of dataavailable but also to generate interest in understandingthe visual traditions of Indian art. For any student of finearts, it is necessary to be aware of the visual tradition inthe past so as to understand the present art production.Understanding of visual tradition enriches visualunderstanding. Hope the young minds find the bookenriching as is intended.

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viii

Gandhi j i ’ s Ta l i smanGandhi j i ’ s Ta l i smanGandhi j i ’ s Ta l i smanGandhi j i ’ s Ta l i smanGandhi j i ’ s Ta l i sman

I will give you a talisman. Wheneveryou a r e i n doubt o r when th e s e l fbecomes too much with you, apply thefollowing test:

Recall the face of the poorest andthe weakest man whom you may haveseen and ask yourself if the step youcontemplate is going to be of any useto him. Will he gain anything by it?Will it restore him to a control overh i s own l i f e and des t iny? In otherwords, will it lead to Swaraj for theh u n g r y a n d s p i r i t u a l l y s t a r v i n gmi l l i ons?

Then you will find your doubts andyour self melting away.

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TEXTBOOK DEVELOPMENT COMMITTEE

Chief Advisor

Ratan Parimoo, Professor and Dean (Retd.), Faculty of FineArts, M.S. University of Baroda

Advisor

Y.S. Alone, Assistant Professor, School of Arts andAesthetics, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi

Members

K.C. Chitrabhanu, Professor of Art History (Retd.),

Government College of Fine Arts, Thiruvananthapuram

Naman Ahuja, Associate Professor, School of Arts andAesthetics, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi

Seema S. Ojha, Assistant Professor, HistoryDepartment of Education in Social Sciences, NCERT,New Delhi

Shama Mitra Chenoy, Associate Professor, History,Shivaji College, University of Delhi

Suchita Raut, PGT (Fine Arts), Delhi Public School, Bhopal

Santosh Jain, Head, Department of Painting, Delhi PublicSchool, Vasant Kunj, New Delhi

Member Coordinator

Jyotsna Tiwari, Associate Professor, Department ofEducation in Arts and Aesthetics, NCERT, New Delhi

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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

We are thankful to Ratan Parimoo, Chief Advisor,Y.S. Alone, Advisor, and all members of the TextbookDevelopment Committee for bringing out this textbook toits present form. Apart from them, various people andinstitutions have been directly or indirectly involved inthe development of the syllabus and the textbook, we aregrateful to all of them. We especially acknowledge the effortsof Surendra Kaul, the then Director General, Centre forCultural Resources and Training (CCRT), who generouslypermitted us to draw upon the resources of CCRT.

We are thankful to V.K. Jain, Professor (Retd.), Moti LalNehru College, Delhi University, for giving his valuabletime and suggestions during the review of the textbook.Also, we thank, Vijayam Sankaranarayan, Editor (Retd.)

and Shveta Uppal, Chief Editor, Publication Division,NCERT, for going through the manuscript and giving theirvaluable suggestions.

Special thanks are due to Surender Kumar and TanveerAhmed, DTP Operators, Publication Division, NCERT.

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CONTENTS

FOREWORD iii

PREFACE v

1. Prehistoric Rock Paintings 1

2. Arts of the Indus Valley 9

3. Arts of the Mauryan Period 19

4. Post-Mauryan Trends in Indian Art and 27Architecture

5. Later Mural Traditions 61

6. Temple Architecture and Sculpture 69

7. Indian Bronze Sculpture 103

8. Some Aspects of Indo-Islamic 109Architecture

GLOSSARY 126

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