Ragamala Painting. Forewod Karan Singh. Published by Ravi Kumar.

Umschlag leicht defekt, sonst gutes Exemplar. - The Indian artistic tradition is among the most ancient and richly varied in the history of mankind. A feature particularly important in Indian Art is that, unlike the great creations of ancient Greece or Egypt, Babylon or Mexico, it represents a tradition that is still alive and vibrant in the life of millions of human beings. This is the special fascination of India, and the reason why Indian art is of much deeper than merely archival or historical interest. The present volume deals with a particularly attractive facet of the Indian artistic tradition. In the RAGAMALA PAINTINGS we have a confluence of two major artistic strands, miniature painting and classical music. In a way all forms of art can be considered inter-penetrative, because the joy of creation and contemplation which they provide ultimately reflects itself in the ineffable mystery of the awareness of beauty. Often two or more art forms are combined, and enrich each other. Thus Indian artists have chosen the RAGAS as a favourite subject. The RAGAS and their derivatives including the RAGINIS and RAGAPUTRAS (the consorts and offspring of the six male RAGAS, the predominant musical modes) occupy a central position in the two great classical systems of Indian music, the Hindustani and the Karnataka. As miniature painting developed mainly in North India, the RAGAMALA PAINTINGS deal essentially with the Hindustani tradition and seek to present, through a wide spectrum of highly imaginative forms and colours, the varying moods and modes of classical music.