World-renowned art historian BN Goswamy passes away at 90 | Chandigarh News

In 1958, he quit the prestigious civil services after less than three years to pursue a career in academics and research, a decision that caused a stir in his family. It was a book on Kangra Valley paintings by M S Randhawa that his friends gifted him when he was leaving the civil services that set his onward journey in the field of Indian miniature paintings.

Soaking up in the field

Prof Goswamy delved into the social background of Kangra painting for his PhD and he was in the field for three years as he spent months in the villages of Kangra studying, researching, and searching.

In a previous interview, Prof Goswamy had said he used his training as a historian and his intuition to follow the path he had chosen. (Express file photo by Jasbir Malhi)

As he travelled across the Kangra hills, he learned the Takri Pahari script and over the years developed a paradigm of how to look at and painstakingly reconstruct family lineages and styles by correlating the inscriptions on the miniature paintings and pilgrim and land records. Just like Indian music has gharanas, he began focusing on family styles, looking in detail for the technique, narratives, and composition.

In a previous interview, Prof Goswamy had said he used his training as a historian and his intuition to follow the path he had chosen.

“I taught myself the Pahari script so I could get a rounded view of the work I was doing. As a researcher and teacher, you have to go into the field, read, study, interact with people, learn new languages, and understand your roots. What’s most important is to have a richness of mind,” he had said.

His essay, Pahari Painting: The Family as the Basis of Style, published in Marg focused on how families of painters shared a common style, and said it wasn’t appropriate to categorise miniatures according to the courts that commissioned them, be it Kangra, Guler, or Chamba.

Seeking the highest aim of art

His book The Spirit of Indian Painting features 101 miniature masterpieces painted between 1100 and 1900, and Wonder of the Age, Master Painters of India, 1100-1900, an exhibition at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, showcased a new dimension of Indian art to the world.

A professor emeritus of Art History at PU, Chandigarh, Prof Goswamy rued that Indians lacked the tradition of archiving and preservation, and he firmly believed that at the museum in Chandigarh, there was a need to add to the collection and reach out to more people with creative ideas. “The highest aim of art is to cultivate your mind. We must build a generation that is sensitive to art,” Prof Goswamy had reflected.

In Chandigarh, Prof Goswamy’s last lecture on October 26 was on his latest publication, The India Cat: Stories, Paintings, Poetry and Proverbs. He delved into the fables from the Panchatantra, Jatakas, and Katha Sarita Sagar to create a picture of how cats were viewed in India. He also took the audience through Indian miniature paintings where cats may not be the principal subject but were nevertheless present as companions or as unobtrusive viewers of the happenings in the palaces.

“Strictly speaking, I am not a cat lover, yet, we should look at the cat more carefully. As a historian, I began to look at cats in paintings, and here are 58 of them in these works, for us to look at and interpret. Dogs have masters, and cats have slaves,” he had said as part of this presentation.

Diwan Manna, Chairperson, Punjab Lalit Kala Akademi, who was associated with Prof Goswamy for decades, said the historian was a colossal figure in the field of art not only in India but across the world.

“He taught people how to read art through his various lectures and presentations. He brought us close to Indian art, its beauty, richness, value, styles and vocabulary,” Manna, an artist and a photographer, added.