Body, History, Myth: Early Mode Murals in South India

by: Anna Lise Seastrand (Author)

Publisher: Princeton University Press

Publication Date: 2024/7/16

Language: English

Print Length: 304 pages

ISBN-10: 069125799X

ISBN-13: 9780691257990

Book Description

The first major exploration of the mural tradition in early mode South IndiaAn astonishing variety of murals greet visitors to the temples and palaces of southe India. Beautiful in execution and extensive in scope, murals painted on walls and ceilings ado the most important spaces of early mode religious and political performance. Scene by scene, histories of holy sites, portraits that incorporate historical figures into mythic landscapes, and Tamil and Telugu inscriptions that evoke the imagined topographies of devotional poetry unfold before the mobile spectator. Body, History, Myth reconceives the relationship between art and devotion in South India by describing how the extraordinary sensory experience of a viewing body in motion unfurls a sacred narrative exquisitely designed to teach, impress, and inspire.Anna Lise Seastrand offers new insights into the arts of early mode southe India, bringing to life one of the most culturally vibrant yet least understood periods in Indian art. She shows how temple visitors become active participants in the paintings through their somatic engagement with visual stories and devotional landscapes. Seastrand highlights the significance of textuality in early mode South Asia by examining the status of professional scribes and the prominence given to authorship of religious literature and art. Her insights are presented alongside new translations of the texts that accompany mural paintings.Featuring a wealth of stunning images published here for the first time, Body, History, Myth provides a multidimensional reading of temple art that fundamentally reframes the artistic, intellectual, religious, and political histories of early mode India.

About the Author

The first major exploration of the mural tradition in early mode South IndiaAn astonishing variety of murals greet visitors to the temples and palaces of southe India. Beautiful in execution and extensive in scope, murals painted on walls and ceilings ado the most important spaces of early mode religious and political performance. Scene by scene, histories of holy sites, portraits that incorporate historical figures into mythic landscapes, and Tamil and Telugu inscriptions that evoke the imagined topographies of devotional poetry unfold before the mobile spectator. Body, History, Myth reconceives the relationship between art and devotion in South India by describing how the extraordinary sensory experience of a viewing body in motion unfurls a sacred narrative exquisitely designed to teach, impress, and inspire.Anna Lise Seastrand offers new insights into the arts of early mode southe India, bringing to life one of the most culturally vibrant yet least understood periods in Indian art. She shows how temple visitors become active participants in the paintings through their somatic engagement with visual stories and devotional landscapes. Seastrand highlights the significance of textuality in early mode South Asia by examining the status of professional scribes and the prominence given to authorship of religious literature and art. Her insights are presented alongside new translations of the texts that accompany mural paintings.Featuring a wealth of stunning images published here for the first time, Body, History, Myth provides a multidimensional reading of temple art that fundamentally reframes the artistic, intellectual, religious, and political histories of early mode India.