The Peninsula of the Indostan currently includes three countries La India, Paquistan and Bangladesh. India is located south of the Asian continent. The Indian name derives from the native word Sindhu which means river and that was originally applied to the Indo, the great water course that crosses Pakistan longitudinally. The inhabitants of this region instead called themselves as a “country of bharata” referring with this term to a mythical ancestor of the lineage of the warriors.
The great Himalayan mountain range that crosses it separates it from Persia and from the Tibet region. The flow rivers, like The Indo, The Ganjes and The Bramaputracontributed to the birth and development of Indian civilization. These rivers are therefore considered sacred for Hindus.
India has an extensive territory that has housed for centuries to a conglomerate of different cultures, religions and traditions from many other peoples that have contributed to define their current culture. The art of India thus has multi -ethnic and multicultural characteristics that have developed pending nature and religion during its conformation, but endowed at the same time with mysticism, sensuality and strong imagination derived from the fusion of it with others no less imaginative and mystical cultures.
It can be said that India has one of the most complex societies with millenary interinflies of races, cultures traditions and religions that make the study of this country a complex but incredibly interesting task.
It is defined The art of India As a sacred or sacred art, it is not only the appreciation of the beauty of artistic works that is pursued, but also the emotion of their contemplation. Through highly sensitive artistic symbols and representations, the faithful of fully identifying themselves with them is provided with them if it has grown and lived in this culture, for those who do not; It is difficult to fully understand the message often veiled. Therefore, the observer in general, the beauty and perfection of these works since they use one of the best vehicles for it; The sensuality that is an element universally lived and perceived by all people.
Compositions of a lively narrative style that do not seem to the naked eye to have messages or religious content are carriers despite this devout intention under the appearance of dynamism, frivolity or even of eroticism sometimes. You dare of the interest and devotion that these works arouse in the viewer, a base is propitiated through which the message and religious propaganda are propagated more effectively by appealing to primordial elements for human beings, as is the case of feelings, eroticism, hope and love.
The art and culture of India They adopt a theory of beauty that is very different from that imposed on Western culture by the clergy; that in these regions it controls and dictates the cultural and artistic dogmas to follow with obvious emphasis, without ensuring or hiding its main purpose.
The art of India stands out as we said for its sensual and sensitive style that is observed in the sculptures, in the decoration of diverse tissues, objects and ornaments in types; either for practical or religious use.
This art enhances the intrinsic beauty of the materials they use, also adding to those that the base and characteristics of it allowed bright and contrastingly contrastiously contrasting to highlight the elements that accentuate the beauty of the work and the drama of emotions.
The perfection of the contours contributes a lot to the personality of the style resulting in incredible visual games among the elements of the set. Subsequently, with the development of new pictorial techniques, the most frequent use of the Three -dimensional volume instead of the chiaroscuro.
The representations of their gods, their stories and legends predominate in the themes.
Animals and in general nature are present in many works: birds, elephants, fish and beautiful plants are used not only as support for the whole scene; but sometimes even as protagonist assets. These works also allude to erotic and love issues between the gods and their beloved in which the narrative character both in painting, sculpture, architecture, poetry, dances and costumes contribute to the best understanding of them both by the faithful and the general public.
Many peoples successively arrived and settled in this great Peninsula of the Indostan for centuries leaving each of them their cultural imprint not only in art but also in the language, religion and writing.
Peoples that were established in the Indostan Peninsula successively:
– The aborigines of dark complexes of the drávidas.
– coming from Australia.
– Mesolytic Mediterranean proto.
– Mongoloids.
– from Armenia.
– Aryans (1500 BC)
-Persians-Greeks (600-300 BC)
-Mongols and protos (50 A. C-300 d. C).
-Hunos (VI-VIII centuries)
-Arabs (IX-XII centuries),
-Turk-Fagan (XIII-XV centuries).
-Turk-Mongols (XVI-XVIII centuries)
-British (nineteenth-century-XX).
We will address in the future entries which corresponds to sculpture, ceramics, architecture and art of textiles and painting in the ancient art of India.