Indian Art

Excellent read. Delivered on time.

It was a very good book. Very informative and helpful for classes. Beautiful pictures back up the writing and help you get a good idea for Indian art and architecture. "Indian Art" also helps you learn about the history of the Indus valley civilization and different archeological finds and theories based on those finds.

Loved my class and will go back to read this book in detail!

Good book beautiful photos and lots of great historical information. I would recommend this book to anyone who has an Asian Art history class or simply likes Asian art and History.

i ordered this book for an art class, its great, has a lot of pictures and is really an easy and interesting read. book was in great condition. i was very happy with it

This is a pretty good book to get started with in learning about Indian art and covers a great deal of information for such a little book. I recommend.

Needed for a class, love the book

I so wanted this book to be a good book on Indian art. But the truth is, very little in this book is worth anything. This book is written like a Lonely Planet guide, without the directions about how to get there. After studying this book, you learn practically nothing about Indian art; nothing about the rules, why those rules were put in place, nothing about the depiction of emotions, style, geometry, use of colors, concept of beauty. You learn nothing about the technical aspects of Indian art. In fact, this book does not describe even in the smallest measure, the art culture, the detail work, and the life-long dedication of the artists and the teachers of art. Indian art did not just happen mindlessly by some cave dwellers with loads of free time to kill. First gripe: Indian art is not about nudes. Absolutely not. No way. Despite all the fixation of the author about this. I can guarantee that the author will not be able to produce a single quote that states the nudes are more artistically important than the main subjects of the sculputures or the paintings. Lets be very clear here; that fixation on nudes promoted by the author is her own, not a traditional thinking in Indian art. The author appears to rate Amrita Sher Gill's drawings very highly. Ok, I understand, it is a matter of personal choice. Govt of India declared her work as national treasure. And, quite a bit of Amrita's drawing was about nudes. But Amrita's worthless opinions about Bengal school of art? Well, the author values them highly as well. Shocking! Second gripe: most photos are atrocious, simple snapshots at high noon, most of the detail lost in dark shadows and sunlight specularity. In fact, the photos match the quality of the text, both equally shoddy and pepared equally carelessly. Often, she made comments about things not related to art. Page 37: "Latin mater and pater may be compared with Sanskrit matru and pitru". Those words are not pronounced as matru and pitru in Sanskrit, but roughly as matri and pitri. Matru and pitru pronunciation is simply regional language influence on Sanskrit. In the same page, she describes Indra as god of war. Indra is not a god of war, certainly not vedic Indra. She quotes an obscure Vedic verse to make her claim. Puranic Indra engaged in some wars with demons. The comments related to art are superficial at best. I will not bore you with lots of gripes. I was shocked that she made no distinctions between Hindu art and Buddhist art. Many Hindu monks have commented on the subject. Therefore, this is not a trivial issue.

Loved this book