The bigger its scale, the more "important" the picture: so a common American reflex goes. Indian art never shared it. The proof is India's most developed form of painting: the miniature. Commissioned by rajahs, Moguls and well-off merchants, bound in albums and luxuriously scrutinized, these tiny images were as important in the East from the 16th century onwardas panel painting in the West. The spring exhibition at Manhattan's Asia House is "A Flower from Every Meadow," a selection of 86 Indian paintings ranging in date from about 1520 to 1900. Chosen and elegantly catalogued by Art Historian Stuart Carey Welch,...
To continue reading:
or
Log-In
