|
intertwined |
|---|
Timeless Traditions in India’s Mughal Heartland: New Delhi in Context--an SAIC Travel Course |
|---|
When Shah Jahan, patron of the Taj Mahal, exclaimed that paradise—if anywhere on Earth—is in Kashmir, he couldn’t possibly have foreseen the post-modern incarnation of his own capital city, Delhi (aka Shahjahanabad). Called New Delhi since independence from the British Raj, the former Mughal capital is now a shining hub of globalization. By virtue of centrality in a country larger than all Europe combined, and orders of magnitude more diverse, there is scarcely a city anywhere that teems with a greater diversity of indigenous craft traditions, colorfully cheek by jowl with spanking new Contemporary Art Galleries that frequently sell out their shows before opening night. After eight whirlwind days of zeroing into artistic nodes within the “seven cities of Delhi” itself, week two will entail a bus-tour around India’s Golden Triangle. With one, two and three overnights respectively in Mathura, Agra and Jaipur, this week will begin with a “pilgrimage” visit to numerous living temples at the birthplace of the Hindu God Krishna, arrayed for miles along the waterfront of India’s second most-sacred river, the Jamuna. Over several days, a deservedly rich architectural contextualizing of the Taj Mahal will be constructed from site-visits to allied monuments encompassing six centuries of glorious pink sandstone and inlaid marble palaces, mosques and paradise garden tombs. Throughout the week these historical encounters will alternate with visits to the studios, market stalls and high-tech showrooms of numerous traditional craft artists. Then, after a culminating day experiencing Jaipur’s famous Kite Festival the group with settle for the final week in Sanskriti, a tranquil “ashram” for visiting artists in exquisite jungly seclusion on the outskirts of New Delhi. Plenty of time to decompress, process all the visual and conceptual overload, and to create visual responses of one’s own, in part under the tutelage of a traditional miniature painter we will have met a few days earlier in Jaipur. Dates of Class: January 1 - 25, 2010 (depart USA 12/30/09)
|