Sadanand Menon: Falling down the hole of art history

CRITICALLY INCLINED

This, unfortunately, is quite accurate. After the early 20th century high with Ananda Coomaraswamy and Vincent Smith and a mid-century efflorescence with C Sivaramamurti, Ordhendra Coomar Gangoly, Moti Chandra, Rai Krishnadas and K V Soundara Rajan and a brief, glorious moment through the 1980s and 1990s with Partha Mitter, Geeta Kapur and Tapati Guha Thakurta, the discipline of art history is floundering. The Art History Department across Indian universities and art schools is either dumbing down or just winding up. Chandigarh University has never recovered from the retirement of Prof B N Goswami. The Art History Department of M S University, Baroda has become victim of communal politics and has been deliberately allowed to languish. After the high standards set by Ratan Parimoo and Shivaji Panikker, it is now on oxygen and sure to be allowed to suffocate to death. The School of Arts & Aesthetics at the JNU, Delhi, has moved out of classical art history and is more into visual studies. The department at Kalabhavan, in Shantiniketan, under Prof Jhanak Jhankar Narzary (with the guiding spirit of Prof R Sivakumar) and the Art History Department at the Sarojini Naidu School of the Hyderabad University are the only serious departments at the moment.

Most pathetic are Chennai, Bangalore and Trivandrum, where the discipline has gone to hibernate. I have, for some time, been seriously concerned with the goings on at the Government College of Fine Arts, Chennai. Set up in 1850, this is the oldest