In this fascinating study, Partha Mitter traces the history of European reactions to Indian art, from the earliest encounters of explorers with the exotic. East to the more sophisticated but still incomplete appreciations of the early twentieth century. Mitter's new Preface reflects upon the profound changes in Western interpretations of non-Western societies over the past fifteen years.

A holistic and systematic analysis of Ernst Gombrich as theorist Offers the first holistic and systematic analysis of Gombrich's theoretical ideas and interrogation of their sources Examines both the history of art and architecture and its current practice Arranges all of Gombrich's sideas howing the aptitude and validity of its theoretical load Enables a new understanding of the nature of Art History and its presuppositions Captures and retains Gombrich's appeal and humour, and his straightforward style without losing depth This is the first English translation of Gombrich: una teor a del arte, by Joaqu n Lorda, originally published in 1991. Lorda was considered to be one of Gombrich's best students and this book presents an extensive, expansive and holistic analysis of Gombrich's thought. It is structured around a set of key ideas and themes: Science, Joke, Game and Rhetoric. Lorda provides in-depth analysis of Gombrich's engagement with figures such as Huizinga, Freud, Hegel, and Popper. While there has been extensive secondary literature on Gombrich, this is the first book to provide a systematic analysis of his ideas and theoretical frameworks, taking into account the entirety of his writings. This major work of scholarship sheds new light on Gombrich as a thinker and turns Gombrich's ideas into a workable theory of art that can be used as an instrument to examine both the history of art and architecture and its current practice.

This richly illustrated book explores the contested history of art and nationalism in the tumultuous last decades of British rule in India. Western avant-garde art inspired a powerful weapon of resistance among India's artists in their struggle against colonial repression, and it is this complex interplay of Western modernism and Indian nationalism that is the core of this book. "The Triumph of Modernism" takes the surprisingly unremarked Bauhaus exhibition in Calcutta in 1922 as marking the arrival of European modernism in India. In four broad sections Partha Mitter examines the decline of oriental art and the rise of naturalism as well as that of modernism in the 1920s, and the relationship between primitivism and modernism in Indian art: with Mahatma Gandhi inspiring the Indian elite to discover the peasant, the people of the soil became portrayed by artists as noble savages. A distinct feminine voice also evolved through the rise of female artists. Finally, the author probes the ambivalent relationship between Indian nationalism and imperial patronage of the arts. With a fascinating array of art works, few of which have either been seen or published in the West, "The Triumph of Modernism" throws much light on a previously neglected strand of modern art and introduces the work of artists who are little known in Europe or America. A book that challenges the dominance of Western modernism, it will be illuminating not just to students and scholars of modernism and Indian art, but to a wide international audience that admires India's culture and history.