HYBRIDITY LECTURE for RSA conference: Hybridity in the Colonial Arts of South India (original) (raw)
Related papers
Indo Portuguese Art and the space of the Islamicate
Parmal, 2008
When discussing the impact of Portuguese colonialism on the culture of the territory we now call Goa, much is made of Indo-Portuguese art. The term operates as a euphemism for the meeting of Christian/Catholic art forms with Hindu/Sanskritic art forms. This framing of the encounter poses two problems . The first is that it continues to play out a colonial Orientalist tendency to identify communities with a religion, hence the Portuguese and European colonizers with Catholicism, and the local inhabitants with Hinduism (if such a concept already existed at the time of colonial conquest). The second problem is that it by and large ignores the impact of the Islamicate in Goa, more often than not content with dismissing it with a brief reference to Mughal forms in the art works. In this short essay I argue that Goa was very much the space of the Islamicate. Further, that to view 'Indo-Portuguese' art in this light would perhaps open up larger and richer ways of understanding this art, as well as moving it away from the colonial (and communal) tendency of seeing art (and culture) as founded in religion.
The Retable art from Goa and the Ancient North Province: Proximity and singularities
The architectural composition of the altarpieces of Goa and the ones from the territories of the ancient North Province share proximity points but once going into the details one soon realizes we’re looking at two distinct artistic realities. Comprehending the singularities in each artistic scenario not only envisions us with the artisans/workshops areas of actuation but also approaches us to the definition of indo-portuguese retable art. The cultural and artistic interactions in inner and outer India have highly contributed to the specificity that characterizes the indoportuguese retable art. The altarpieces combined a set of functions in one single composition: serving the purposes of the Christian praise but also skilfully serving the purposes of teaching of the gospel to newly converts. The altarpieces, in the scenario of the quest for evangelization of the Indian subcontinent, began to acquire different forms, different artistic grammars and most of all, a spectacular inter-religiosity dialogue, for local long term generation artisans were now in the making of these altarpieces. The altarpiece is in this perspective the representative of faith through art, the book in images. The symbols are replaced, the forms are altered and the scales are enlarged. The (in) comprehension of the Christian symbols, the immersion into the Christian religious culture and the absorbing of religious values that in last analysis would provide the desired conversion would be given majestically without any adulteration in the quality of its making. It’s in this way that the economical and opportunist use of local workmanship provides to the indo-portuguese retable art an important contribution in the way that coats itself of qualities that differ, for example, from the altarpieces in other territories of Portuguese conquests. The local artisans are, for these reason highlighted: without even knowing this new religious language, but speaking fluently the artistic language, they were responsible of bringing to light what were to become unique forms of art.
Unruly Images: Representing India in the Calwer Bilder-Tafeln zur Länder- und Völker-Kunde (1883)
Journal for Religion, Film and Media, 2021
This article focuses on a work published in 1883 by a German Christian press associated with a missionary society. The book provides a visual panorama of all the world's cultures in 1,690 engravings. Most images were reproductions of material that had initially appeared in a variety of other contexts, ranging from missionary periodicals to secular travel magazines and British colonial literature. This study examines the message that the volume's editors wanted to convey: the extra-European world was portrayed as devoid of historical agency, non-Christian religions as false, and the presence of western agents-in particular, missionaries-as providential. Retracing the life story of a few images, I show that some of them communicated these notions better than others. For example, engravings based on photographs were often not as polemical as those based on drawings, simply because of the characteristics of photography as a medium. Complicating the critical reading of the images as simply missionary propaganda, I argue that a volume like the one examined here is best understood when placed within a transnational (or connected) history of visual practices.
The Goan Catholic religious architecture is undoubtedly a unique and valuable transcultural heritage, which needs to be understood and preserved. For four and a half centuries, during the Portuguese administration, this heritage was conserved following Western premises, moderated by the local influences. With the integration of Goa into India, the preservation became under the Indian cultural influence, and this fact has brought some changes. Therefore, issues and idiosyncrasies concerning transculturality, the meaning of heritage and authenticity among different cultures (in this case, Portuguese culture and Indian cultures) will be discussed, including the debate on the heritage preservation in Goa.
"Introduction," Art, Trade, and Imperialism in Early Modern French India
Book: Art, Trade, and Imperialism in Early Modern French India (Amsterdam University Press), 2019
A forum for innovative research on the role of images and objects in the late medieval and early modern periods, Visual and Material Culture, 1300-1700 publishes monographs and essay collections that combine rigorous investigation with critical inquiry to present new narratives on a wide range of topics, from traditional arts to seemingly ordinary things. Recognizing the fluidity of images, objects, and ideas, this series fosters cross-cultural as well as multi-disciplinary exploration. We consider proposals from across the spectrum of analytic approaches and methodologies.
The Curious Case of Goan Orientalism
ACT 27 - Goa Portuguesa e Pós-Colonial: Literatura, Cultura e Sociedade, Everton V. Machado and Duarte D. Braga (Eds.), 2014
This essay argues for recognizing a form of orientalism peculiar to Goa. This peculiarity results from the manner in which two different types of orientalisms combine with one another to produce Goan orientalism. These two types of Orientalism would be Goa Portuguesa, a strain of Lusotropicalism, and Goa Indica, a strain of Indian nationalism which is in turn a product of British Indian orientalism. The terrain of Goan orientalism is sketched in this essay through a discussion of the recently published coffee-table book Moda Goa: History and Style by fashion designer and stylist Wendell Rodricks (2012). Despite being the work of an amateur historian, I would argue that this work needs to be given academic attention, for it is largely the popular press that determines the manner in which history is understood, and the manner in which these histories are then used to frame personal as well as larger group or collective narratives.
Navajyoti, International Journal of Multi-Disciplinary Research Volume 4, Issue 2, February 2020, ISSN: 2456–3781, 2020
In the second half of the nineteenth century, a printing industry entirely devoted to the production of pictures of gods, goddesses, and mythological themes that emerged in India. By the end of the century, these cheap mass-produced pictures became the most influential medium of visual communication of the then socially and culturally fragmented Indian society. The pictures were treated not only as religious icons but soon become a medium for the advertisement of goods and services, and subsequently, for ‘political propaganda’ as well in the wake of Indian ‘nationalism’. This paper will explore and elucidate the god-prints and their ideological and sociological significance as India’s first unifying visual medium of communication formation of a ‘new’ nationalist Hindu imagery.