Description

Immediate dispatch from Somerset. Nice older book in good condition. Name in front. No notes or highlighting. See images. Fantastic book.

About the book >.>.> Perveen Ahmad’s “Aesthetics and Vocabulary of Nakshi Kantha” is not only an enlightening and in depth view of the Bangladesh National Museum’s Collection of ’embroidered quilts’ but gives a new analytical insight into the artistic aspects and meaning of motifs in kantha art. In words and pictures she guides the reader to look at a selected number of some of the best kanthas in the Museum. In her presentation the author has exposed new angles of interpretation by investigating the social religious and poltical backdrop which brought about the unique art form. She points to sources and explains how at a particular historical time in particular circumstances and as a result of human conditions both sociological and political various processes came to bear upon the evolution of the folk art-craft of nakshi kantha. Her discovery of religious streams of thought in the motifs giving rise to prime information on roots of the symbols create a fascinating and novel theory. She states that kantha art goes beyond the realm of logic and training and possesses a numinous power a shakti which is inspired through a divine gift. Kantha art is not just skilfull embroidery. It is a vocabulary a means of communication inviting us to ‘read’ the aesthetics of design motif and symbol to understand the inner reality of the society as it existed at a given time.