Chakshudana or Opening the Eyes: Seeing South Asian Art Anew (Visual and Media Histories)

Chakshudana or rituals of opening the eyes are practiced across multiple South Asian communities by artists, sculptors, and priests. The ritual offers gods access to the mortal world. This practice, applied to the study of material and visual culture, offers a distinctive perspective to interrogate the complex engagements with paintings, sculptures, found objects, fragments, built environments, and ecologies. This volume takes the process of seeing as its focus—to look closely, remaining true to the object, but also to see widely—from multiple subjective stances and diverse bodily engagements such as walking to dreaming, glancing to looking askance, hypnotic stares, and to see beyond the visible. It examines art history through nuanced considerations of materiality, aesthetics, and regional specificities. The essays emerge from current research that builds on the contributions of Michael W. Meister, W. Norman Brown Distinguished Professor of History of Art and South Asia Studies at the University of Pennsylvania, whose works laid the foundations for the study of South Asian visual and material culture. The essays in this book underscore methodological resonances rather than privileging conventional categories of media or chronology, exploring artistic media including temples and paintings as well as Bengali-quilted textiles, manuscript ‘lozenges,’ and metal repousse. This volume, part of the Visual Media and Histories Series, will be of interest to students and researchers of history of art, religious studies, and history as well as the allied disciplines of anthropology and folklore studies. Chapter 2 of this book is freely available as a downloadable Open Access PDF at http://www.taylorfrancis.com under a Creative Commons (CC-BY-NC-ND) 4.0 license. 9781003291473_webpdf-compressed Cover Half Title Series Information Title Page Copyright Page Table of Contents List of Illustrations List of Contributors Preface Notes Acknowledgements 1 Introduction: Reading Monuments and Seeing Texts: Michael W. Meister and the Opening of Eyes A Scholar’s Scholar Meister as Mentor and Teacher Essays in This Volume Notes References Part I Seeing and Knowing 2 Region, Style, Idiom, and Ritual in History: Michael W. Meister On the Study of Jain Art A Plea Region, Style, Idiom Osian: Ritual and Iconography in History In the Field With Michael Concluding Comments: The Study of Jain Art Notes References 3 Conversations With Michael Meister 4 Churning the Object: Michael W. Meister as Manthana References 5 Reminiscence Part II Style and Idiom: Classification and Complexity 6 Meister Purana in Modern Indian Art Notes References 7 Squaring a Circle: Design and Construction in the Temple of Anwa The Temple Stylistic Evidence Historical Evidence Constructional Evidence Structural Analysis Conclusion Notes References Part III Formal Metamorphoses and Mutability of Meaning 8 Liberating Migrations: On the Trail of Jaina Temples in Medieval Central India Introduction Indor’s Jain Temple The Advent of the Jains at the Turn of the Millennium (Dis)-Continuities and Reuses in the Present-Day Notes References 9 Paper Prasadas Notes References Part IV Vernacular Craft and the Rhetoric of Re-Making 10 On Jaidev Baghel’s Practice: Casting Aside the Art / Craft Divide The Value of Craft for a Fledgling Nation Jaidev Baghel, Tradition, and Situated Practice Jaidev Baghel and Meera Mukherjee: Craft, Art, and Its Entanglements The Fluid Categories of Art and Craft Critical Reception of Jaidev Baghel’s Work Conclusion Notes References 11 Chamba and the ‘Painterly’ Vision The Practice of Painting The Possibilities of Painting Opening the Doors of the Kingdom The ‘Painterly Vision’ Across Media Re-Contextualization of Established Dynastic Sites Redefining the Temple Space The Assertion of Rajput Identity The Bhakti Movement Notes References Part V Image Iconopraxis and Iconoplasty 12 Nonhuman Animals On Unlabelled Sculptures of the Bharhut Stupa Railing Introduction Monkeys, Medics, and Monastic Audiences Reversal of ‘Big Fish Eating Small Fish?’ Conclusions Notes References 13 Stitching Spectacles: A Visual Culture of Bodily Prowess and Muscular Nationalism in Colonial Bengal Muscular Masculinity and the Hindu Family Hot Air Balloon Rides, Balancing Acts, and Contortionist Gopis Embroidering On Spectacle Notes References Michael W. Meister’s Publications Books Edited Books Articles Bibliography Chakshudana (Opening the Eyes) Index