Empires of light : vision, visibility and power in colonial India / Niharika Dinkar.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Dinkar, Niharika, author.

Series:

Rethinking art's histories.

Manchester scholarship online.

Rethinking art's histories

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Ravi Varma, 1848-1906--Criticism and interpretation.

Ravi Varma.

Art, Indic.

Art, Colonial--India.

Art, Colonial.

Light in art.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (xiii, 284 pages, 16 pages of colour plates) : illustrations (black and white), plates (colour); digital file(s).

Place of Publication:

Manchester, UK : Manchester University Press, 2019.

Language Note:

In English.

System Details:

data file

Summary:

A study of light, vision and power in colonial India. It examines the material cultures of light within imperial networks, drawing the colonial experience into contemporary debates on vision and optics to provide an art historical account of how a modern consciousness was forged amidst these dramatic transformations.

Contents:

Introduction : writing photo-graphic histories of empire

part I. Technologies of illumination. Through the glass darkly : the phantasmagoria of Elephanta

Four acts of seeing : the veil as technology of illumination

part II. 'Visibility is a trap' : battles of the veil. 'Purdah hai purdah!' : proscenium theatre and technologies of illusionism

Erotics of the body politic : the naked and the clothed

part III. Chiaroscuro, portraiture and subjectivity. Private lives and interior spaces : masculine subjects in Ravi Varma's scholar paintings

Impossible subjects : the subaltern in the shadows.

Notes:

Previously issued in print: 2019.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Description based on e-Publication, viewed on November 23, 2020.

ISBN:

9781526139658

1526139650

9781526150387

1526150387

9781526139641

1526139642

OCLC:

1120689636