Domains of Wonder: Selected Masterworks of Indian Painting
Saturday, December 16, 2006 - Sunday, March 11, 2007
Paintings from India in Domains of Wonder reveal the richness and diversity of cultures from various regions of the subcontinent between the 14th and 19th centuries. The exhibition includes devotional illuminations, illustrated Persian and Indian epics, imperial Mughal portraits, and responses to British colonialism. Most of the paintings formed parts of books or albums. They could serve to enhance the spiritual potency of a sacred text or to indicate the elite status of the patron as a connoisseur.
Intimate viewing of pictures would take place on special occasions or on holy days, be they in the context of a temple or a court. The paintings would elicit a sense of wonder in these traditional settings, as they did for Edwin Binney 3rd in San Diego in the twentieth century. Dr. Binney, for nearly three decades until his death in 1986, assembled one of the world’s most comprehensive collections of Indian painting, from which all the works in this exhibition are drawn.
Domains of Wonder: selected Masterworks of Indian Painting was organized by the San Diego Museum of Art and made possible through support from the Getty Foundation, the Institute for Museum and Library Services, SDMA Asian Arts Council, the Christensen Fund, the National Endowment for the Arts, SDMA Docent Council, and the Committee for the Arts of the Indian Subcontinent. Support for the exhibition in Atlanta was provided by Anita and Michael Thomas, Vasu Srinivarsan, USAFB, Madanjet Oberol, Professor Jagdish N. Sheth and Family, the Halle Institute, and the Asian Studies Program at Emory University.
Intimate viewing of pictures would take place on special occasions or on holy days, be they in the context of a temple or a court. The paintings would elicit a sense of wonder in these traditional settings, as they did for Edwin Binney 3rd in San Diego in the twentieth century. Dr. Binney, for nearly three decades until his death in 1986, assembled one of the world’s most comprehensive collections of Indian painting, from which all the works in this exhibition are drawn.
Domains of Wonder: selected Masterworks of Indian Painting was organized by the San Diego Museum of Art and made possible through support from the Getty Foundation, the Institute for Museum and Library Services, SDMA Asian Arts Council, the Christensen Fund, the National Endowment for the Arts, SDMA Docent Council, and the Committee for the Arts of the Indian Subcontinent. Support for the exhibition in Atlanta was provided by Anita and Michael Thomas, Vasu Srinivarsan, USAFB, Madanjet Oberol, Professor Jagdish N. Sheth and Family, the Halle Institute, and the Asian Studies Program at Emory University.
