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Support for the Arts
Historically, the arts flourished under the support of two
main categories of patron: the larger Hindu temples and the
princely rulers of states both small and large. Over the
last two centuries, the patronage of British residents and
art collectors has become important. In independent India, a
national art institute, the Lalit Kala Akademi, promotes the
visual arts through lectures, prizes, exhibitions, and
publications.
The government supports the Sahitya Akademi, which was set
up in 1954 to promote excellence in literature; the National
School of Drama (1959); and the Sangeet Natak Akademi
(1953), which promotes dance.
Graphic Arts
India has a multiplicity of visual arts extending back over
four thousand years. Early painting has not survived, but
urban architecture and some small sculptures have. Most of
the thousands of stamp seals that have been found are
masterpieces of glyphic art, showing the large animals of
northwestern India in miniature relief.
The main visual arts arose in the context of religious
worship. Sanskrit handbooks still survive stipulating the
rules for the production of Hindu religious statues,
temples, and paintings. Distinctive regional styles of
temple architecture are a feature of the landscape and a
clear marker of the presence of Islam, Sikhism, Jainism,
Christianity, and Hinduism in each part of the country.
Within the Hindu temples there is a great variety of images
of the deities, some skilfully carved in stone, some cast in
bronze or silver, and some modeled in terra-cotta or wood.
Painting was an ancient accomplishment, although the climate
has not been conducive to preservation. One can still see
second and third-century wall paintings and monumental
Buddhist sculptures in caves in Ajanta (Madhya Pradesh).
Despite Islamic prohibitions on the representation of the
human face, painting and drawing flourished under the Moghul
emperors. Realistic portraits, historical scenes, and
botanical and zoological subjects were evoked with a
sensitive line and a subtle pallet of colors during that
period.
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Painting in
oils dates back two centuries, to the time when the first
European portrait painters began to work in India. Today
there are many professional graphic artists, some inspired
by old Indian traditions and some by modern abstract
expressionism. Art schools, public exhibitions, and
coffee-table books are the means of reaching their public
today, while religious patronage has practically evaporated.
Performance Arts
India has the largest film industry in the world. In 1996,
683 feature films were certified by the Board of Censors.
Although television came to even rural India more than
twenty years ago, the cinema remains the major popular
visual art form. In 1996, India had 12,623 cinemas, with an
attendance of ninety to one hundred million weekly. Radios
are widespread, primarily as a source of light music, but
not as a major source of information.
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