‘A pioneer who brought out the poetry in art’—Mint Lounge

B.N. Goswamy (1933–2023), one of the most eminent art historians of our times, put India’s art on the global map. His lucid interpretation of art made the subject accessible to a wider audience. He was a master chronicler who offered ‘slight sketches of large subjects’.

Ruminations, Goswamy’s last work of, rues the vanishing traces of artisans’ guilds in Europe, celebrates the illustrations to La Fontaine’s fables produced in Lahore, opens a window to the Jain legend of Ilaputra who was driven to the edge of renunciation, explores the pioneering map of the world drawn by the Turkish admiral, Piri Reis, admires the dazzling range of embroideries in the Calico Museum, chronicles the ensigns of royalty that belong to the Mughal period, brings to light Timurid kitab-khanas, the Tibetan sand-mandalas and much more.

Lucid, comprehensive and engaging, Ruminations is a the most definitive primer on art in India and South Asia.