Eclectic Arts in the Global 19th Century

How does art motivate the economy, participate in political action, develop society, and aspire to beauty? In this introduction to the arts of South Asia, 1650 to the present, we will consider these questions. From the floral designs adorning the Taj Mahal to popular clay figurines, and from the British colonial production of turning raw cotton into patterned cloth to Gandhi’s movement for independence based on the hand-spun, we will examine the arts of painting, sculpture, and monumental architecture alongside the decorative arts of textiles, furniture, ceramics, and bronze, and modern artists’ contemplation of earlier traditions to create the contemporary.