Art conclave focuses on cross cultural history

Be it detailed discussions on the fun figures in Indian art or a peek into the cross-cultural and composite forms that shaped the Harappan culture, an art conclave in the capital that began Tuesday will shed light on many such colourful facets of Indian art.

The three-day Indian Art History Congress was inaugurated by Union Culture Secretary Ravindra Singh at the National Museum where he called upon historians and researchers to help the government in its efforts to publicise the country's antiquities through digitisation.

"The ASI (Archaeological Survey of India) has published more than 3 lakh antiquities online, while 10,000 objects being exhibited by 10 museums in the country have also gone online. Their public value can rise by leaps and bounds if we got more human resource to pad them up with background material," said Singh at the inauguration.

Around 200 experts from various museums, universities and institutions are slated to present 93 research papers during the conclave around the theme "Cross Cultural Assimilation and Composite Forms in Indian Art".

This conclave is being organised by the National Museum in association with the National Museum Institute.

During the opening session, historian M.K. Dhavalikar gave a power-point presentation on the cave temples in Mumbai. Titled "Treasure Island", the 25-minute talk threw light on the value of the caves as massive repositories of Buddhist art and aesthetics that are stylistically similar to the paintings and sculptures in Ajanta and Ellora caves of Maharashtra.

According to Venu Vasudevan, director-general National Museum, these deliberations would facilitate scholarly exchange of knowledge about India's diverse artistic forms from ancient to modern times.

The conclave will conclude Nov 13.