Arts in Kashmir
Kashmir has existed as a major artistic and intellectual center since the early centuries of the Common Era.The Kashmir Valley was a destination for both Buddhist and Hindu pilgrims and several esoteric strains of the two faiths, including Tantrism and Vajrayana Buddhism, were practiced throughout the region. Although most early Kashmiri kings were Hindus, they patronized Buddhist monasteries. Some rulers were great patrons of the arts and funded the development of music, dance, and poetry, as well as religious and secular architecture. The Kashmiri poet and historian Kalhana has provided us with an account of twelfth-century Kashmir in the Rajatarangini, his chronicle of kingship. Through Kalhana's narrative, we know that Muslims were settled in Kashmir and had positions in the Hindu royal court from at least the eleventh century. Islamic dynasties ruled over the region from the fourteenth century to the nineteenth century. During the Islamic period, Kashmir's artistic traditions in textiles, painting,and book production were given a great boost as artistic needs shifted to accommodate the new tastes and visual traditions of the Islamic rulers. The sculptures, paintings, textiles, metalwork, and other decorative arts featured in this exhibition are a living testament to the cosmopolitan nature of
Kashmiri society and the peaceful co-existence of multiple religious faiths.
Visual arts the historic perspective
Although regional cultural variations have been discernible since the earliest beginnings of Indic civilization,
they became increasingly well defined over the centuries. After the Gupta period in particular, regional art
schools paral-leling linguistic, cultural, and social patterns may be broadly defined according to the three major
geographic divisions usually used to describe the South Asian subcontinent, that is, northern, southern, and central (Deccan).
These categories should not be viewed as absolute, especially in the case of the Deccan schools, which often share
characteristics of both north-ern and southern art, or in the case of the coastal regions, where on the east and on
the west certain artistic ties may be seen from north to south, almost seeming to obviate the three divisions. Within
the broad spheres of the northern, southern, and central divisions, there is a great deal of variation arising from
numerous factors including strong local traditions, as seen, for example, in the case of the art of Kasmir, where the
Bactro-Gandhara heritage persisted ( Courtesy Huttington) Read More
