Photos Of The Gods The Printed Image & Political Struggle In India

Photos Of The Gods examines the history of the printed image in India from its beginnings in the1870s to the present day. Using many intriguing and unfamiliar visuals, it showshow printed images have been pivotal to the constructions of new forms ofreligious identity and the struggle for political independence in India. Drawingon years of archival research, interviews with artists and publishers, and theethnographic study of their rural consumers, the book makes for an engagingvisual and narrative journey. It sets the detailed output of individual pressesand artists against the intensification of the nationalist struggle, theconstraints imposed by colonial state censorship, and fifty years of Indianindependence. Along the way, it also introduces the reader to artists whotrained within colonial art schools, others whose skills reflect theirmembership of traditional painting castes, and yet others who are self-taughtformer sign painters. Combining anthropology, political and cultural history,and the study of aesthetic systems, the book shows that the current predicamentof India cannot be understood without taking into account this complex,exciting, and until now virtually unseen, visual history.