Making Faces: Self and Image Creation in a Himalayan Valley
Material type: TextPublication details: Niyogi Books 2012Description: 160pISBN: 9789383098019Subject(s): Indian Art | Mohras | Sculputures | Visual artDDC classification: ARTVItem type | Current library | Call number | Materials specified | Status | Date due | Barcode | Item holds |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Books | Arthshila Santiniketan Shelf: L2 | ARTV/HIN (Browse shelf(Opens below)) | Available | BK00017 |
Taberam Soni, Labh Singh, Amar Singh, and other artists live and work in the hill-villages of the lower Himalayas in Himachal Pradesh, India. There they fashion face-images of deities (mohras) out of thin sheets of precious metal. Commissioned by upper-caste patrons, the objects are cultural embodiments of divine and earthly kinship. As the artists make the images, they also cross caste boundaries in a part of India where such differences still determine rules of contact and correspondence, proximity and association. Once a mohra has been completed and consecrated, its maker is not permitted to touch it or enter the temple in which it is housed; yet during its creation the artist is sovereign, treated deferentially as he shares living quarters with the high-caste patrons. Making Faces tells the story of these god-makers, the gods they make, and the communities that participate in the creative process and its accompanying rituals.
There are no comments on this title.