MetaFilter posts tagged with India and art

To dye for

infini — Sat, 19 Dec 2009 11:44:51 -0800

Best known as an Indonesian handicraft, batik is a distinctive technique for textiles that has been used for millennia and can be found as far away as Egypt, Ghana, China and India. An integral part of daily life in Java, batik has spread around the world as a wellknown artform as well as clothing. From its hippy heyday to the smart couture outfits of the Singapore Girl, batik is still daily wear for many and the equivalent of black tie in the ASEAN. How to make batik step by step (Indonesian video) (Ghana photogallery) The Indonesian Cap man. Nelson Mandela's Madiba shirt.

Hindu festivals

homunculus — Wed, 09 Sep 2009 14:22:38 -0800

The Big Picture: Recent Hindu festivals and rituals. "Many Hindus throughout India recently celebrated Ganesha Chaturthi, a 10-day festival celebrating the birth of Ganesh, their supreme god of wisdom, prosperity and good fortune. Hinduism, the predominant religion in India, is rich with traditional festivals and rituals, celebrated in many ways and locations around the world. Collected here are a few photographs from recent Hindu festivals and of Hindu devotees worshipping and practicing ritual ceremonies in India, England, Nepal and Indonesia."

At the Roof of the World...

hadjiboy — Wed, 12 Aug 2009 10:20:10 -0800

The beautiful artwork of the Tibetan people.

Ourgothlaundry?

The Whelk — Sun, 12 Jul 2009 07:38:06 -0800

The Art & Life of Annie Truxell [via mefi projects]: Annie Truxell is a well known painter who has lived a long and fascinating life. Her adventures have been legendary, encompassing Greenwich Village in the 50s, London in the 60s and India in the 70s. She was friends with Franz Klein, Bill de Kooning, Truman Capote, Terry Southern, Mati Klarwein & many other wild & woolly people.

India and South Asian resources

nickyskye — Tue, 09 Jun 2009 22:22:27 -0800

Dr. Frances W. Pritchett, Professor of Modern Indic Languages at Columbia University, New York, has created a superb online collection of resources, all about India and South Asia, its art, history, literature, architecture and culture. Her Indian Routes section (the Index page) is a particularly rich resource. Her vast, colorful and informative site also has many great images. Check out her "scrapbook pages" on the Princes l the Ghaznavids l British Rule l Women's Spaces l Perspectives on Hinduism. Photos of Professor Pritchett and her encyclopedic page of links about India/South Asia, Morningside Mix.

Drawings of Kings, and their Palaces.

hadjiboy — Tue, 10 Mar 2009 20:38:22 -0800

Welcome to the Garden States of the Mughal Empire.

Raghubir Singh

chunking express — Thu, 26 Feb 2009 11:16:06 -0800

Raghubir Singh. Yes, the website is in flash. Suck it up, because his photographs are wonderful. Sadly he passed away in 1999. He was working in colour in the 70s, which was still very uncommon for fine art photography.

Garden and Cosmos

adamvasco — Sat, 29 Nov 2008 12:55:55 -0800

A rare glimpse into a forgotten Hindu world.
Garden and Cosmos - The Royal Paintings of Jodhpur. Virtually none of the 60 works on view in "Garden and Cosmos" have ever been published or seen by scholars since their creation centuries ago.
All paintings are from the Mehrangarh museum. ( whose links are also full of interest ). (After the last days of horror and sadness I thought some Indian goodness was now required).

Middle Eastern Body Art

netbros — Wed, 13 Aug 2008 17:01:24 -0800

Staining the nails, skin and hair with henna is the favorite way of enhancing beauty amongst women in the Middle East. It is used as a hair treatment as well as a dye to make decorative designs on the skin. The art is known as mehndi. Henna markings remain on the skin for about twenty or thirty days. Henna cosmetics are made from the Egyptian evergreen plant, lawsonia inermis. Stay away from black henna. Many people are allergic.

Faces of the Divine

homunculus — Tue, 25 Dec 2007 13:16:20 -0800

India's Ancient Art. "Fifth-century painters created stunning murals in dim man-made caves. A gifted photographer brings them to light." Ajanta was also mentioned in this post.

The art of Prashant Miranda

greatgefilte — Sun, 10 Jun 2007 14:15:32 -0800

PrashArt

Inside one of the biggest antiquities-smuggling rings in history.

dhruva — Mon, 14 May 2007 20:01:16 -0800

The Idol Thief "Vaman Ghiya operated one of the most extensive and sophisticated clandestine antiquities rings in history, and he had grown rich in the past three decades by smuggling thousands of Indian antiques to auction houses and private collectors in the West."

Hindu case against 'obscene' Muslim artist fails

Phanx — Tue, 08 May 2007 04:13:24 -0800

Proceedings against MF Husain have been stayed in India's Supreme Court. A painting by the celebrated Muslim artist, apparently depicting Mother India as a nude, led Hindus to bring an obscenity case and proceedings to seize his Mumbai property were initiated. However his lawyers moved swiftly to frustrate the action, transferring the property into his son's name and then seeking the High Court ruling. Hindus have taken offense at previous paintings by Husain, depicting Hindu deities in allegedly obscene ways. Others disagree.

"We were just trying to write songs about prostitutes and lesbians, that's all."

Blazecock Pileon — Thu, 19 Apr 2007 21:25:09 -0800

Introduced to Western culture by the Beatles in their single Norwegian Wood, the sitar has featured prominently in North Indian classical music for centuries. Princeton-based computer scientist Ajay Kapur updates the instrument with his ESitar, an audio and video controller that uses gesture input (PDF) and machine learning algorithms to facilitate joining the computer with Ajay in his sitar performance. Undergraduate engineering students at the University of Pennsylvania work from the other direction, building RAVI-bot, an award-winning, self-playing robotic sitar (YouTube) programmed to generate music from classical Raga scales and melodies all on its own. For those in the Philadelphia area, be sure to check out a live performance of RAVI-bot at the local Klein Art Gallery.

And now--a quick word from our sponsors!

hadjiboy — Wed, 24 Jan 2007 22:42:32 -0800

Advertising in India (thanks to this post by NickySkye) More ads here and here

Rung--Oh--Lee

hadjiboy — Sat, 20 Jan 2007 03:01:15 -0800

The art of Rangoli:

A life at high altitudes

nickyskye — Thu, 15 Jun 2006 23:36:16 -0800

The Nicholas Roerich Museum in New York City, houses paintings by Nicholas Roerich, a Russian artist, who spent most of his life on the Indian-Tibetan border, creating evocative images of night and day in the Himalayan Mountains. (more inside)

Wild Photos

Gyan — Fri, 16 Sep 2005 11:48:21 -0800

Alex Bernasconi's (Mostly Wildlife) Photography [via MeCha]

MetaRaga

Gyan — Sun, 11 Sep 2005 14:32:13 -0800

ITC Sangeet Research Academy - a guide and resource of Hindustani classical music
RealPlayer and Flash recommended

Holy car!

dhruva — Sun, 17 Jul 2005 04:23:30 -0800

The Omkara Project "..the word Omkara meaning - ' the vehicle to cross the ocean of life ' Crossing this ocean is the journey that the mortal being must undertake in a lifetime and henceforth encounter the three basic elements of mortality - creation, preservation and destruction."

Nek Chand's Rock Garden

p3t3 — Sat, 16 Jul 2005 07:21:31 -0800

Nek Chand was working as a roads inspector in northern India in the 1950's. Around 1958, he began collecting materials from demolition sites and using them to create a secret place which would soon grow into a beautiful rock and sculpture garden. But it happened to be on a national land conservency, and in 1975 authorities discovered it and the garden was nearly demolished. However, by this time it had already grown into a twelve acre complex of interlinked courtyards, each filled with hundreds of pottery-covered concrete sculptures of dancers, musicians, and animals. Chand soon gained much public support and in 1976 the garden was sanctioned as a public space. It then continued to grow and today it is over 40 acres.

William Gedney, photographer

matteo — Wed, 27 Apr 2005 16:38:23 -0800

What Was True. From the mid 1950s through the early 1980s, William Gedney (1932-1989) photographed throughout the United States, in India, and in Europe, and filling notebook after notebook with his observations. From the commerce of the street outside his Brooklyn apartment to the daily chores of unemployed coal miners, from the lifestyle of hippies in Haight-Ashbury to the sacred rituals of Hindu worshippers, Gedney was able to record the lives of others with clarity and poignancy. Gedney's America is a nation of averted eyes, and broken automobiles, and restlessness, a place Edward Hopper would recognize, but so, also, Walt Whitman.

Artserve

hama7 — Sat, 29 Nov 2003 20:42:46 -0800

Welcome to ArtServe: Art & Architecture mainly from the Mediterranean Basin and Japan.

Indian art

homunculus — Sun, 20 Jul 2003 10:20:31 -0800

Articles on Indian art. There are many great articles here on Buddhist and Hindu art from India and Tibet. Exotic India Arts also sells various Indian arts and crafts.

Women's Folk Art from India

plep — Tue, 20 May 2003 13:43:40 -0800

Madhubani Painting - 'an on-line exhibit of folk paintings by women artists who live in the Madhubani district of northern India.' With a gallery of paintings depicting, among other things, interpretations of popular Hindu stories.
Related :- an exhibition of Maithil paintings at asianart.com; Patterns and Prints of India.