Traces of India investigates the roles played by photographs of Indian architecture from the late 18th century. The inquiry stretches from their pre-history to their migration into book illustrations, calendar art and religious imagery. Beyond the apparent purposes of these images as picturesque views, records of an architectural past, political memorials, travel mementos, textbook vignettes, deeper considerations influenced the way their makers worked, selecting, framing, composing, and populating their representations of these monuments. These images remain enduring records of minds as well as monuments. This book is an investigation of that deeper visual culture, showing us how 'simple' images of buildings are in fact complex artifacts that reveal the ways their makers think.
Tweleve essays from renowned scholars working in several disciplines show how photpgraphs of architecture reveal the inescapable ways in which the practice of image making is aligned with different aspects.
This publication accompanied an exhibition of the same name, organised in 2003-2004 by the Canadian Center for Architecture in Montreal and Yale Center for British Art, New Haven.
Edited by Maria Antonella Pelizzari
Essays by Julia Ballerini, Stephen Bann, Partha Chatterjee, Janet Dewan, Nicholas B. Dirks, John Falconer, Tapati Guha Thakurta, Narayani Gupta, Peter H. Hoffenberg, Thomas R. Metcalf, Christopher Pinney, and Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak.
Praise
"... a very substantive analysis of photographic history in India, using the representation of architecture as its focal point." caa.reviews
