South Asia
Featured Module: Masterpieces of South Asian Art & Archaeology
Masterpieces of Indian Art and Architecture is one of the department's more popular courses. With this in mind, the VMC has worked closely with Professor Dehejia and two exceptional graduate student preceptors, Ms Dipti Khera and Yuthika Sharma, towards developing resources in support of this course. Covering some 2000 years of South Asian history, the class is divided into segments devoted to the art and architecture of Buddhism, the emergence and development of the Hindu temple, the art of Islamic sultanates, Mughal and sub-imperial rule, early modern and British colonial art, and the art of post-colonial and contemporary India. The curriculum provides us with numerous opportunities to experiment with the pedagogical applications of new media.
While the original focus of the grant was on narrative painting, we discovered that many of the students in this course had much more difficulty grasping the complex nature of the many architectural sites and cultural landscapes taught over the course of the semester. Our work has included a survey of the narrative elements of wall paintings in, for example, the Ajanta Caves. We have also designed a geographic information system for the entire region. This system identifies key sites across the area as well as basic demographic information that was unfamiliar to many of the students in the class. Visitors to the site may then select sites on the map, exploring each in greater detail. The site-specific resources includes both graphical and textual information on each case study, including excerpts from Professor Dehejia’s survey of Indian art. This system then serves to provide geographic context to the cultural landscape and artistic tradition of the region.
While student needs shaped our decision to work on architecture and sites, simple opportunity was also an issue. In the spring of 2007 Professor Dehejia led a travel seminar to India. The geographic information greatly helped her prepare her students for the trip, but we will also had the opportunity to capture original content for many of the sites featured in the program. The graduate preceptors who we have worked closely with traveled with the student group, and we trained them in conventional photography and the capture of Quick Time Virtual Reality nodes to add to our system. Needles to say, they also have exceptional knowledge of the individual sites, knowledge that our regular team of documentarians would take months to accrue. With these factors in mind, we have decided to focus on individual works of architecture and their attendant sites across South Asia to take full advantage of this opportunity to capture original content.
Image PortfoliosBritish Architecture In Bombay & New Delhi
Introduction of the Buddha Image
Modern & Contemporary Art in India
Paintings in the Himalayan Foothills: Basohli & Kangra
Rock-cut Kailasa temple at Ellora
Sub-Imperial Mughal Ramayana (Abdul Al-Rahim Khankhanan)
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