From the Ocean of Painting: India’s Popular Paintings, A.D.1589 to the Present Hardcover

Over the centuries India, with its genius for painting, has developed myriad traditions and types of painting that constitute, collectively, an “ocean” of visual form. Yet books on Indian painting in the West have focused mainly on miniatures commissioned by Indian emperors and maharajas, with little attention given to popular painting – painting for the people. This book, based on a travelling exhibition that that the curated, is intended as a comprehensive overview of this diverse and fascinating material. It features 21 forms of Indian popular painting, with four-colour and black and white illustrations selected from 30 collections.

About the Author

About the Author: Barbara Rossi is Professor of Painting and Drawing at The School Institute of Chicago. She is a distinguished artist whose own paintings, drawings, and prints have been exhibited nationally and internationally and appear in numerous museum collections. She first traveled to India in 1983 and returned in 1986 as an Indo-American Fellow and in 1989 as an American Institute of Indian Studies Fellow, undertaking the research of Indian miniature and popular painting traditions that has led to this publication.