Presented by

Jagannath Saha
Ph.D scholar of AIHC&A
Visva Bharati, Santiniketan
Membership no.-AM-26418
Section- Ancient India
Mob.-7699324331
 “Architecture is a non-verbal evidence of their own time and communicates contemporary time to the later people. For
this purpose, the scholars give their interest on the study of Art and Architecture of a country”. Art history of a country
represents the cultural value of that country and various cultural aspects are also presented through art materials of a
country. Mostly we evaluate the value of art in a particular parameter. But we should have to mention that by whom and
which context we do this evaluation; and it must be written in all work which is related to the art history of a country,
otherwise true evaluation become discriminated. Already established knowledge about a nation or race may be biased
and the source of negligence or exaggeration of that nation’s culture. Sometime the culture of that nation or race is also
given more or less value rather than their exact value, for example many times occident uses their established knowledge
and makes a biased description about orient and vice versa. We have to keep in mind that all the nations or races or
cultures have their own theory and display some cultural uniqueness through their cultural symbols like art,
architecture, paintings, festivals, and rituals etc., which represent particularly that nation or race or culture. If we
compare a culture of a country with other countries then it may have some differences but we never say that it is more or
less valuable for other countries because it represents that particular country not the other countries.
 The first historiography work was done by Pramod Chandra in his edited volumes entitled “The studies on Indian Temple
architecture “1975 and some years later he published a book on Indian art history in 1983 (on the study of Indian art). More
recently some works in this topic are done by Partha Mitter (1977), Gautam Sengupta (1986) N. Bhuvanendran (1991) Tapati
Guhathakurta (2004), Devangana desai (1990, 2006), Parul Pandy Dhar (2011), Ratan Parimoo and others. All these
historiography and Biographical approach are very recent works by art historians and some more advanced studies need to be
done for better understanding of the perspectives of Indian art history.
 Phase I-1800-1850 A.D (primitive phase of studying Indian art)

 Phase II-1850-1900 A.D (phase of factual study of Indian art)

 Phase III-1900-1950 A.D (phase of nativeness on the study of Indian art)

 Phase IV-1950- Present time (phase of new approaches of Indian art history)
 Travelers and missionaries involvement
 Information based study
 Poor analysis of data
 Did not connect with society
 Dominated by antiquarian scholars
 Focused on documentation, archiving and reporting of art object
 This phase was ended by James Prinsep
 William Hunter, William Jones, Colin Mackenzie, Herrington, Jonathan Duncan, Captain E. Fell, Charles

Warre Mallet, Sir James Mackintosh, J Goldingham, William Erskin, William Chambers, James Prinsep,
Ram Raz and others.
 This phase was started by James Fergusson and Alexander Cunningham.

 Establishment of ASI by A. Cunningham

 Factual study with batter field work and systematic.

 Dominated by European scholars.

 Focused on artistic and technical process of art making

 Biased by derivative nature and progressive degeneration of Indian art

 James Fergusson, Alexander Cunningham, James Burges, W. Simpson, AA. Mc. Donnell, A.H. Longhurst, Henry
Cousense, Alexander Rea (European scholars) and Rajendralala Mitra (Indian scholar).
 Understanding Indian culture with myth, religion, traditional texts and architectural remains.
 tried to make a bridge between traditional text and temple
 Search for Indian origin of Indian Art.
 Nationalist approach in Art History.
 More involvement of Indian scholars
 tried to place Indian art within the cultural context of Indian art.
 Tried to find the inter relationship of myth, religion, philosophy and art.
 A. Foucher, G. Jouveau Dubreuil, Ernest Binfield Havell, Ananda K. Coomaraswamy, Stella Kramrisch, Manmohan
Ganguli, Nirmal Kumar Bose, Jagannath Ambaram, M. Sompura, P.K. Acharya, N.V. Mallayya, S.K. Saraswati and others.
 Use of proper terminology
 Multidimensional approach
 Advanced use of silpa text
 Iconography and symbolism get more emphasis
 Establishment of Temple Survey Project 1955
 Emphasis on regional variety,
 Use of alternative way of writing
 post-modern approaches including social value of art material, gender issue, symbolic meaning of art objects are taken.
 subaltern studies get importance
 Benjamin Rowland, H. G. Geotz, S. L. Huntington (general account)

 S.K. Saraswati, Kalyan Kumar Gangopadhyaya, B.P. Sinha, M.R. Majumder, C. Sivaramamurti(regional accounts)

 V.S. Agarwala. S.R. Balasubramaniam, (dynastic account)

 Krishna deva, K.R, Srinivasan, M.A. Dhaky, K.V. Sundararajan, B.C. Bhattachrjee, Jyotindra jain, Eberhard Fischer,
Umakant. P. Shah, Lokesh Chandra, Debala Mitra, Tomas Donladson (iconography)

 S. Settar, R.N. Mishra (subaltern)

 Nihar Ranjan Roy, Vidya Dehejia, Devangana Desai

 Kapila Vatsayan, Adams Hardy, promad Chandra, Tapati Guha Thakurta, parth Mitter, Shivaji Panikkar, Parul Dave
Mukherji, Deeptha Acharand others.(new perspectives)
 Periodical classification of the present study is made according to the method of study and ideology of the art historians and their works. Hence, the time
before 1850 is considered the formative stage of Indian art history. During this phase European historians collected art materials and exhibited them in
museum at their own place. They never tried to understand the social and cultural value of these materials. This trend has changed after the coming of James
Ferguson and his first work appeared to us in 1845.An institute for studies of ancient remains Archaeological Survey of India established in 1861 and the works
were continued with new method which was different from previous. During this period a detail documentation and description of art material was done but
they failed to relate them with the Indian tradition and made a bias description of Indian art. These kinds of works were continued till the rise of strong
nationalism and some prominent Indian scholars. So, the period of 1850-1900 is considered as the documentation and descriptive phase of Indian art and also
the phase of colonial bias. A distinguish art philosopher and his works appeared from 1906 onwards, introduced a different ideology phase of studying Indian
art that is A.K. Coomaraswamy.The Indian scholars before A.K. Coomaraswamy could not bring in effective methodology or philosophical understanding of
Indian art. The phase 1900-1950 is considered as the time of establishment of nativeness and nationalism in the study of Indian art. This phase emphasized on
a different method to study of Indian art. During this phase Indian traditional silpa text and description of monuments were interlinked by some Indian as
well as some Western scholars. After starting Temple Survey Project in 1955, the study of Indian art got a new perspective of analyzing art objects. A detailed
study of every kind of monuments, temples, rock cut architecture, and sculpture continued during this phase. Some more changes during the last decades of
the present phase (1950- present time) turned the way of thinking and interpreting art objects more scientifically. So, this phase has got a different identity in
present study.

 The equal division of the period counting as 50 years have taken in every phase may not be bounded within this period only. Most
notable works followed a particular method of study was done mostly within the every said period but overlapping of ideas and writing activities of some
historian across the phases. However a dominant trend of studying Indian art was there in every phases.
 0: Establishment of Asiatic Society (Bengal) by William Jones in 1784 and the start of
the study of Indian past in a concise way. Indian art was exhibited by colonial artists.

1: First book of James Fergusson ’Rock-cut Temples of India’ appeared and

introduced a disciplinary study of Indian Art (Architectural remains).

2: First work on Indian art by Ananda Coomaraswamy ‘Aims of Indian Art’ was
published and introduced a new method of study of Indian Art history. He combined
the technical and traditional methods in studying Indian Art.

3: Started Indian Temple Survey Project and the study of Indian Art became more
scientific.

4: Influenced by the Post-modern approaches, the study of Indian Art History shifted
towards multidimensional outlook of art objects.

Features:

Colonial/Oriental Approach: Survey, documentation, drawing, archiving, and

exhibition.

Indian Traditional Approach: Use of indigenous architectural text and living tradition
of architects- sculptors (Rise of text and tradition based method).

Phase 1 (1800-1850): Documentation, museum show, collecting information, private collection (Exception- Ram Raz).

Phase 2 (1850-1900): Description, form and stylistic analysis, use of Art material for writing history, colonial bias, comparative method.

Phase 3 (1900-1950): Understanding Indian culture with myth, religion, traditional texts and architectural remains. Search for Indian origin of Indian Art, nationalist approach in Art
History.

Phase 4 (1950-present): Emphasis on regional variety, the colonial aspect was mixed up with the Indian tradition, post-modern approaches including social value of art material, gender
issue, symbolic meaning of art objects, subaltern studies.
 One of the most significant aspects of India, through which India can be known to the other countries,

is its traditions. Art is one of the most important way by which Indian people recorded their traditional
past. Through the study of Indian art historiography one can understand the true fact of its history,
contribution of art scholars and their methodology. Through this work readers can easily understand
the various perspective of early Indian art and its history. On this field, the work is also not don so
much. New perspectives like social foundation of art, gender, artist etc. also need to better clarification.
So, more work needs to be done for betterment of analytical knowledge on early Indian art.
JAGANNATH SAHA