Missing the wood for the trees

ARTWORDS

Arts consultant, advisor and curator Alka Pande is known for her thorough research, which is why the loose weave in Indian Art is so astonishing. It makes you wonder at the inclusion of “forensic” or “crime scene” photography in a chapter on photography — this is, after all, a book on art — almost as much as her casual reference to the miniature painting “schools of Mewar, Udaipur or Jaipur” — Mewar and Udaipur are the same place, and it should be Amber, not Jaipur — as the inclusion of tribal crafts such as dhurrie weaving, metalware or Firozabad glassware.

It is this overwhelming inclusion and casualness that makes Indian Art disappointing, especially since this is the first primer of its kind in the market. Less information, in this case, might well have been more.

At another level, one more grouse might be that the information in the book — and at a basic level there is so much of it — seems to have been written not so much with passion as with pedantic research. One would have expected insights from Pande on the artists as much as on processes such as woodcuts and intaglio printing, of etching and engraving and a host of other things that though they are all described in the book, have been done so in the most obvious and academic way — anyone interested might get the same information by merely Googling it: it is Pande’s interventions that would have been valuable and which are, alas, missing.

Some might even have a problem with her profiling of painters, sculptors, photographers, ceramicists and new media artists, but this is where I close ranks with her: the small handbook offers a range which, by its nature, cannot be absolute, and is likely to be subjective. In being indicative, though, she has provided bridges between masters, contemporary artists, the well-known and the unknown, showing also that while artists might be transitory, all art has a life.

For me the most important section of the book are two-dozen odd pages towards the end where finally Pande’s voice breaks through in the Expertspeak, listings, collecting art in India, and the nitty-gritties of the art experience that are critical for a collector. This alone makes the otherwise excellently produced handbook worthwhile. Fortunately, for those of us who have access to Pande, we can turn to her for information: for those who don’t, however, Pande should consider another book where she personalises and shares more of her insights than she has brought to this volume.

INDIAN ART
The New International Sensation
A Collector’s Handbook
Author: Alka Pande
Publisher: Manjul
PAGES: 268