|
Advertise Here
Indian Arts & Handicrafts
The story of Indian art is
also the story of the oldest and the most resilient culture on earth. It is
seen as an amalgamation of indigeneous and outside influences, yet having a
unique character and distictiveness of its own. Indian arts is also an art of
social, political and religious influences. It changed and evolved with the
evolution of a civilisation which was full of remarkable innvotions in all ares
of artistic expression.
Indian art features spirals and curvaceous
lines, vines and tendrils, round-figured goddesses, circular amulets, coloured
gemstones, arches and domes, haloed deities, crescent moons, and the globe of
the sun. Indian sculpture and paintings depict the divesity, colour and
spontaneity of this country and are representations of the all-encompassing
nature of Indian culture.
The Next golden chapter of Indian sculpture
opens in the 3rd century BC, when the Mauryan emperor Ashoka adopted Buddhism
and set out on a mission to spred the teachings of the faith as far and wide as
possible. He had 85,000 stupas or dome-shaped monumets constructed with the
teachings of Biddhism engraved on rocks and pillars. These incriptions which
served as edicts can be seen in Buddhist monuments in Gujarat, Bihar, Madhya
Pradesh and Tamil Nadu. The lion capital of the pillar is now the official
emblem of the Indian Republic and the sacred wheel of law or the dharamachakra
is symbolic of the the first sermon that Buddha delivered at
Sarnath.
Ajanta and Ellora - North-east
of Mumbai, near Auangabad are two astonishing series of temples carved out of
living rock over the course of fourteen centuries. During the 4th century AD.
in a remote valley, work began on the Ajanta caves to create a complex of
Buddhist monasteries and prayer halls. As centuries passed, numerous Buddhist
monks and artisans excavated a set of twenty-nine caves, some cells,
monasteries and Buddhist temples. All of these were carved from rock cliff at
Ajanta. These caves are adorned with alaborates sculptures and paintings which
have withstood the ravage of time.
Khajuraho - The tranquil town of Khajuraho, in the
central state of Madhya Pradesh boasts of the best medieval temples in India,
known all over the world for thier erotic sculptures. These glorious tempels
are the state's most famous attraction. The temples of Khajuraho displays a
wealth of sculpture beauty, evoking the grandeur of the snow-capped Himalayas
as well as the earthly pleasures of life.
Miniatures Painting - At first glance, an Indian
miniature painting, to the uninitiated, appears nothing more than a cultter and
tangle of pastorals settings, dominated by masculine and feminine figures. Yet
these scenes are not detached visions of artistic expression but provide the
basis of Indian music and art forms. Most of these masternity works are visual
creations of emotional and perceptive concepts that depict the ragas or musical
modes of Indian classical music. Miniature painters employed at various
medieval courts, discovered the potential of limitless self-expression in their
depiction and today these are 130 known sets of such miniatures.
Indian Handicrafts: India has the widest
variety of handicrafts anywhere in the world. However diverse
and intricate the range of handicraft forms
producted by Indian craftmen, the root of the creative process
has always been the artisan tradition. It presents both the
widest canavas of creative activity
and the boadest spectrum of development.
The patterns that the handicraft
traditions in India were to take and which were to survive for years, apper
already mature and firmly established in the cities of the Indus
valley.
The classical handicraft tradition flowered around rulers and their
courts and the temples built to glorify the gods. India's rural arts are the
visual expression and technological processes of people living at several
cultural, religious and sociologocal levels.
Indian arts and handicrafts
cover a wide range and use a variety of raw material. Popular
arts and handicrafts are clay craft, wood work, stonework, textile, ivory,
basketry & mat
weaving, leather, toys, papier mache & shell metals forms, glass, theatre,
crafts.
|
