From the Publisher
It is a book which is an expression of the knowledge.
Experience and personality of the author as a scholar. As a
lover of art and as a museum man teaching art of his own land.
This book is sure to be well received by all ardent
scholars of Vijayanagara art whose nuances and great
dimensions during and after that period in the Nayaka times
have been delineated in a thorough manner, perhaps for the
first time.
Both laymen and scholars will find VIJAYANAGARA PAINTINGS a
valuable aid to the understanding of Indian iconography.
Sri Calambur Sivaramamurti. whose sudden passing
away was recently condoled widely in India and abroad was a
typical product of a traditional oriental South Indian
conservative extraction imbued with a significant academic
equipment and apparatus of occidental analytical perceptions.
Born in 1911 to the heritage of Appayya Dikshita - the
polymath of the 17th century Tamilnadu - he received his
post-Graduate degree in Sanskrit, standing I Class first, from
the Presidency College, Madras and was the student of the
illustrious and revered Professor, Mahamahopadhyaya Dr. Pandit
Kuppuswami Sastri, Vidya-Vachaspati. Showing an early flair
for sketching and sculpting and a depth of knowledge in
traditional Sanskrit lore, he soon inevitably gravitated
towards the Government Museum, Madras, then a great center of
cultural and archaeological studies under the headmanship of
Dr. Gravely. One of his early outstanding works in that
institution was his study of the Art of Amaravati, and many
similar studies were to follow from his facile pen. Joining in
a few years' time the Archacological Survey of India, as the
Officer in charge of its Museum branch at Calcutta in the
Indian Museum, another celebrated center of Indological
studies, he was soon to be owned by his learned
contemporaries. Dr. Jitendranath Banerjee, Dr. Sunitikumar
Chatterjee and others. A regular stream of studies on several
regional Schools of Indian Art followed, besides a
well-documented treatment of Indian Epigraphy. During that
period, he was deputed by the Government of India as a member
of a Cultural Mission to Indonesia, and as a result emerged a
masterly presentation on the Art of Borobudur, later published
in France. The next obvious shift for him was to the National
Museum, Delhi, which he adorned with great distinction as its
Chief, for more than a decade.
A scholar of truly international renown, no major Seminar
on Indian art anywhere in the world was complete without the
dignified and amiable presence of Sivaramamurti. He was
decorated with PADMA BHUSHAN by the Government of India. His
treatment of wide-Rudriya, Sri Laksmi and Ganga to Rishis of
the past, had been fundamental, original and penetrative
contribution on the many-sided creative activities and
integrative characteristic of the ancient Indian cultural and
social fabric. Possibly his most brilliant work which he did
under his Jawahar Lal Nehru Fellowship, was on NATARAJA in
INDIAN ART, which attracted an UNESCO award of recognition. A
copious writer and dedicated exponent of Indian regional Art
schools and his own name alike, household names, in the
process.
Contents
|
List of Illustrations |
x-xi |
| I |
Prelude |
1 |
| II |
Early Phase |
4 |
| III |
Immediate Sources |
23 |
| IV |
The Beginnings: Early Phase of Vijayanagara Art |
28 |
| V |
Late Phase |
46 |
| VI |
Offshoots And Ramifications |
55 |
|
Illustrations |
61 |
|
Bibliography |
125 |
|
Index |
130 |
