Fantasies of History in Indian Painting

Speaker: Kavita Singh

August 14, 2008 | 6.30 pm
Little Theatre, National Centre for the Performing Arts, Mumbai

Many of the miniature paintings produced for Mughal and Rajput patrons between the 16th and 19th centuries in India depicted individuals and events from the life at the court. Capturing likenesses and recording festivities or battles, these paintings were one kind of historical text. But what kind of histories were they? When scholars consider these paintings of life at the court, they look upon them as ‘texts’ that will yield information about events and appearances. This presents a more complex view of the roles served by these paintings in their contemporary context, particularly the relationship between the reality that these paintings depict, and the realities that these paintings create. For if these paintings preserve a record of events that occurred, they equally present a record of events that the patron or painter may have wished had occurred.

Oscillating between historical facts and wish-fulfillment, these paintings of life at courts force us to re-examine our ideas of fact, record and truth; visual versus verbal histories; and the relationship of fantasy and history. One might say, in a sense, that the idea of a ‘real’ unbiased history becomes the ultimate fantasy. This presentation will examine a range of paintings and read them alongside historical texts and other sources, to understand the relationship between history, propaganda, and fantasy in Indian courtly painting.

Kavita Singh is an Associate Professor at the School of Arts and Aesthetics, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi, where she teaches courses on the history of Indian painting and the history and politics of museums. She has published on Indian folk and courtly painting, Sikh art and the history of Indian museums and was Research Editor at Marg, one of the major art journals in India. She has held research fellowships and curatorial positions in several prominent museums abroad and is currently working on a book on the history of museums in post-colonial India.Her teaching and research interests include the history and politics of the museum in India, and issues in Indian painting, particularly of the late Mughal period.