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Semester 2

Poetics, Piety, Politics: Approaching Indian Painting 1500-1900 (HIAR10149)

Subject

History of Art

College

CAHSS

Credits

20

Normal Year Taken

3

Delivery Session Year

2023/2024

Pre-requisites

Visiting students must have completed 3 History of Art courses at grade B or above, and please note that we will not consider History courses unrelated to Art, or practical Art courses, towards these pre-requisites. We will only consider University/College level courses. Please see Additional Restrictions below.

Course Summary

This course will serve as an advanced introduction to the arts of South Asia focusing on Indian painting from 1500-1900. Taking a thematic and methodological approach to Indian painting, this course will reflect on the conceptual and material expression of the painted image and its production in the diverse contexts of imperial, courtly, mercantile and devotional realms in the subcontinent.

Course Description

Why do paintings from South Asia look the way they do? What are the epistemological foundations of the painted image in early modern South Asia? What was the role of manuscript and album painting within court culture? How did painting respond to changing visual technologies, especially the advent of print and photography in the subcontinent? Utilizing a longue durée perspective the course will take up the discussion of key works from South Asia that speak to both the conceptual and formal developments in painting in early modern South Asia and the myriad socio-cultural and political factors affecting their creation. **Painting is a core component of the arts of South Asia. It encompasses a wide range of source material - from Jain manuscripts to Mughal albums, illustrated poetry and musical paintings from the Rajput courts to topographical drawings made for East India Company officers, portraits, souvenirs and much more. This course will familiarize students with the current debates and themes of the discipline while offering an opportunity for close study of objects. Students will be introduced to larger debates surrounding aesthetics and art appreciation of paintings and provide insights into the political, devotional, and cultural contexts of their creation. The course will aim at consolidating skills of visual and critical analysis and serve as an advanced foundation course for South Asian art. **Teaching will be delivered through a mixture of lecture, discussion and student presentation in two-hour classes. These will include occasional visits to important collections of South Asian paintings, drawings in Edinburgh. Students will also spend approximately an hour a week discussing readings and images as part of student-led peer learning groups.

Assessment Information

Written Exam 50%, Coursework 50%, Practical Exam 0%

Additional Restrictions

Unless you are nominated on a History of Art exchange agreement, visiting students are only permitted to enrol in one 3rd year History of Art course each, per semester, before the start of the relevant semester’s welcome period – and spaces on each course are limited so cannot be guaranteed for any student. Enrolment in a second course from this group will depend on whether there are still spaces available in the January Welcome Period, and cannot be guaranteed. It is NOT appropriate for students to contact staff within this subject area to ask for an exception to be made; all enquiries to enrol in these courses must be made through the CAHSS Visiting Student Office. This is due to the extremely limited number of spaces available in this very popular subject area.

view the timetable and further details for this course