September 2003
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The ArtsOctober 2021Jali
Windows of Divine Light in Mughal Art and Architecture
by Editor: Navina Haider, contributors: George Michell, Mitchell Abdul Karim Crites, Ebba Koch
A jali is a perforated stone or latticed screen, with ornamental patterns that draw on the compositional rhythms of calligraphy and geometry. In the parts of Asia and the Mediterranean where solar rays are strongest and brightest is where ustads, or master artisans, were able to evolve an aesthetic language of light, giving it form and shape through stone and other materials. Jalis share a common aim to bring filtered light into enclosed spaces, while providing protection and privacy. Additionally, they shape the atmosphere of a sacred space, augment the grandeur of palaces and enhance the charm of domestic interiors. This book explores the delicate beauty of more than two-hundred jalis across India, from fourteenth-century examples in Delhi to those designed by global contemporary artists inspired by historical styles. This expansive volume covers the temple designs of the Gujarat Sultanates, imperial symbolism and Sufi allusions in Mughal jalis, the innovations and adaptations of jalis across Rajasthan and central India and, further south, calligraphy in stone relief and pierced stone in the Deccan. With contributions by American art historian Mitchell Abdul Karim Crites, George Michell, an authority on South Asian architecture, and renowned art and architectural historian Ebba Koch, this lavishly illustrated publication reveals the poetry etched in these stone screens. Navina Najat Haidar is a curator in the Department of Islamic Art at The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York. She helped lead the planning of the museum’s galleries for the Art of the Arab Lands, Turkey, Iran, Central Asia, and Later South Asia. Mitchell Abdul Karim Crites is an American art historian, who has lived and worked in India for more than forty years. His primary focus has been the revival of traditional Indian and Islamic arts and crafts. Over the years, Crites has participated in a number of prestigious art and architectural projects ranging from Mexico to Malaysia. George Michell, an authority on South Asian architecture, has made the study of Deccani architecture and archaeology his life’s work. He has spent over thirty years researching and cataloguing the enormous ruined city of Hampi Vijayanagara, among many other historical sites in the region. Ebba Koch, preeminent art and architectural historian, is presently a professor at the Institute of Art History in Vienna, Austria and a senior researcher at the Austrian Academy of Sciences. Dr. Koch has spent much of her professional life studying the architecture, art, and culture of the Mughal Empire, and is considered a leading authority on Mughal architecture. Abhinav Goswami, based in Vrindavan, is trained as an archaeologist, photographer and temple priest. For the last three decades, Goswami has dedicated himself to documenting people, places, architecture and festivals of the rich cultural region of Vraj and other parts of India. http://mapinpub.com/bookinfo.php?id=315
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FictionOctober 2020The Outlook for Earthlings
by Joan Frank
The Outlook for Earthlings traces an unusual, difficult friendship across a lifetime, between women of stunningly opposite natures. Melanie Taper is timid, compelled to obey and venerate authority. Yet in unguarded moments she demonstrates such deadly insight into human foibles as to suggest a strength that has, for dark reasons, deliberately hidden itself. Scarlet Rand, by contrast, is rash, willful, and impatient of reverence of any stripe. Scarlet is shocked by Mel's passive reserve; despite her obvious gifts, Mel is—bafflingly—self-erasing. Mel's saintliness maddens Scarlet—because finally and most troublingly, Scarlet disbelieves it. Their friendship suggests to each a final frontier, a saving sanctuary. Yet at its core, a pained impasse soon becomes evident: each woman takes a secret, moral offense at the other's inmost nature—and choices. Living out these differences—against awareness of the illness which is slowly destroying one of them—proves an ultimate challenge. In each, a reckoning must occur. The Outlook for Earthlings examines what women want, amid conflicting layers of need. It ponders beginnings, endings, and Virginia Woolf's declaration that good angels must be killed. It considers the limits of friendship—and of the act of witnessing. At its heart, it asks how we may finally measure a life—and who should do the measuring.
