Chapter 10 - India
Terms
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- stupa
- a pure hemisphere, geometric purity of form is not always the rule in Indian architecture.
- Rather than a roundheaded arch, Indian architecture favors
- a pointed arch, its sides meeting in a point at its apex (an Indian pointed arch being lower and flatter than the slender Gothic pointed arch). Sometimes also scalloped with a series of concave shapes. Rather than a round dome, Indian arch. often favors an onion dome.
- onion dome
- a slightly bulbous form in which the diameter of its base is smaller than its greatest diameter, such as the one topping the Taj Mahal.
- Indian Palaces took many forms, but generally they were compositions of many distinct elements such as...
- audience halls, throne rooms, men's quarters, and women's quarter. The design of each element was often symmetrical, modular, and strictly ordered, but the overall composition, was less orderly.
- Chief building material in India for palaces was
- stone, sometimes reddish sandstone, as at Fatehpur Sikri, and sometimes white marble, as at the diwan-i-am (public audience hall) and the kiwan-i-khas (private audience hall, both built within the Red Fort at Delhi. Merchant class mansions (haveli) were built of amber-or ochre-hued sandstone, centered around interior courtyards and rising several floors high.
- Describing the houses of Indian classes:
- The mansion (haveli) walls, inside and out, were frequently elaborately frescoed. Houses for the middle class might be made of fired brick and tile, more modest houses of sunbaked mud brick. Doors and other woodwork elements were elaborately carved, whenever the owner's budget allowed. House plans often included verandas and planted courtyards.
- Characteristics of temples of the north in India
- Characteristically a tall, tapering form
- Characteristics of Indians Hindu temples of the south is:
- a simpler, more rectangular form, or a stack of such forms, capped by a miniature cupola (a small dome).
- Both types of temples in India (north and south) had _________ interior spaces
- impressive - decorated and frequently aligned in a series of increasingly tall rooms. So thick was the stone construction, however, that the interior spaces had surprisingly small volumes compared to the bulk of the exterior forms.
- pietra dura
- Italian term for inlaid design composed of hard, semiprecious stones.
- chattri
- In Hindu architecture, umbrella-shaped forms atop slabs that are supported on posts. Also spelled chatri. The signular is chattra. (Taj Mahal sports 4 chattri)
- minaret
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Tower attached to a Mohammedan mosque, with one or more balconies from which Muslims are summoned to prayer. A large tower or lighthouse is called a minar.
One on each corner of Taj Mahal. - cenotaph
- A funerary monument not containing the body of the dead. Example: At Taj Mahal - the Mumtaz Mahal's centotaph with white marble inlaid with colored stones, the pietra dura work surpassing quality of anywhere in the world.
- shish
- mirror mosaics popular in India - used for decorating small pieces of painted wood (often hexagonal shaped. Ivory inlay was also popular.
- damascening or damascene work
- A type of metal inlay. The design is incised by means of carvings or acid applications on a metal base, and the depressions are filled in with wires of different metals cut to fit. Usually the background is a base metal such as steel and the inlays are of more precious metal, such as silver or gold.
- champleve work
- A type of enamel in which the pattern is grooved in a metal base and the grooves are filled with colored enamels. Pronounced zhahm-play-vay.
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Tie-dyeing
(indian textile techniques) - sometimes called tie-and-dye, sometimes called bandanna work, is a technique done by hand and not dependent on chemical reaction. Small secdtions of cloth to be colored are gathered up and tied tightly together with thread or string. Sometimes waxed strings are used to further repel the dye. The whole cloth is then submerged in the dye, which is unable to penetrate the tightly bound sections.
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India's Textile Techniques:
Ikat - Similar to tie-dyeing - the yarn is treated or tied to resist dyeing before the cloth is woven. A planned pattern can emerge as the weaving proceeds. Edges are slightly blurred, believed to have originated in India
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India's Textile Techniques:
Embroidery - A further embellishment of needlework designs that can be applied to any cloth.
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Indian textile Designs:
buti, boota, or bootari: - The most basic traditional family of Indian design motifs, appearing also in sculpture, it is a series of small floating sprigs or sprays and appearing againsta a plain background. Handwoven cotton fabric employing such motifs are sometimes called boota muslins.
- INDIAÂ’S DECORATIVE ARTS
- Indian objects made of brass or steel; steel objects treated with damascening (inlaying). Indian enamels applied to gold and silver plate and Indian equivalents of the champleve work. Indian carvings of ivory; ivory portals. Ivory also used for facing of columns and as inlay on wooden doors, small wooden tables, and musical instruments. Carved ivory in buddhas, chessmen, puppets, combs, and boxes. Painted papier-mache
- INDIAÂ’S FURNITURE:
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- Chairs were not in common use, but important personages sat on thrones. Thrones were sometimes made of gold and wood. When wood, they were inlaid with gold, silver copper and crystal.
- Carvings represented lions, horses, elephants, conch shells, the bull, the peacock, or the lotus. In addition, thrones were draped in plain or brocaded silks.
- Char-pai or rope bed was most common article of domestic furniture. - INDIAÂ’S FURNITURE
- - Generous use of textiles throughout in the form of wall hangings, cushion covers, and carpets. Textiles, have long been one of IndiaÂ’s most admired products.
- INDIAÂ’S TEXTILES
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- Cotton and weaving of textiles have been imp. Parts of indiaÂ’s culture since prehistoric times. Cotton, wool, silk, woven and embroidered. .
- Indian muslin was all the rage in Rome, during neroÂ’s reign, where it originated
- Silk was also exported to Rome, both as yarn and as finished cloth.
- Silk weaving reached a high level; India imported its first silk from China
- Fabric panels used to divide and screen interior spaces - Palampore
- hand painted cotton (chintz) bbedcover with a central medallion and related corner patterns, similar to some Persian carpet designs.
- INDIAÂ’S colors:
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- Red madder, a plant-derived dye also sometimes called turkey red..they perfected the use of catalysts called mordants, necessary for cottonÂ’s absorption of almost all dyes.
- Yellows came from turmeric, now used as a condiment
- Greens, came from pomegranate rind
- Blacks came from a mixture of iron shavings and vinegar
- Blues, the most potent dye of all, so strong that it could be applied without the use of a mordant, came from the indigo plant, indigofera tinctoria. It produced a deep purplish blue color popular in India and throughout Southeast Asia - INDIAÂ’S colors - symbolism:
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- Red or white – color of Brahman class
- Green – color of merchants and traders
- Yellow – color of the religious and ascetic
- Blue – color of the low caste
- White – color of purity and mourning
- Saffron yellow – the clor of spring and youth
- Red – color of early marriage and love. - INDIA’S carpets:
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- Patterned with flowers, leaves, vines, sometimes with a few animals added among the foliage. In the earlier carpets, the weavers drew the flowers with great care, as if they were botanical specimens. The colors in the carpets are brilliant.
- The Lahore carpets – pile made of pashmina, Kashmir goat’s hari, cashmere; they were extremely well made ranging from 400 knots per sq. inch to more than 2000. - INDIA’S TEXTILE DESIGNS:
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- Buti, boota, or bootari
- Native animals, birds, or plants including peakcock (mor), parrot (tota, goose (hamsa), lotus (kamal), the hunting scene (shikar), The Paisley (the most famous design motif of Indian textiles) – origins Persian wind-blown Cyprus. Evolved into the Mughal floral and tree-of-life designs. - Textile terms with predecessors in Hindi, one of India's major languages, include:
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CHINTZ, based on the Hindi word chitta, meaning "spotted".
DUNGAREES, based on the word dungri, originally referred to a coarse East Indian cotton used for tents, sails, and rough clothing.
KHAKI, a Hindi word meaning "dusty" or "dust-colored"
Pajama, based on pa, meaning "leg", and jama, meaning "garment"
SEERSUCKER, shir-sakkar - milk and sugar - suggesting a mixture of textures
SHAWL based on the word shawl. - By far the most famous design motif of Indian textiles is the
- Paisley (kalga). It was introduced less than three hundred years ago, but is now immensely popular. The origins are Persian (the wind-blown cypress). By the seventeen century, the motif had evolved into Mughal floral and tree-of-life designs. By the late eighteenth century, it had been codified into the leaf-shaped form with rounded base and curving, pointed top familiar today.