Indian Art: A History (Online)

1. what is Indian Art?

• India and South Asia
• Themes in Indian art
• In the image of man
• Ornamental delight
• Telling tales in a divine world
• The religions of India

2. Stupas and storytelling

• Buddhism and the Mauryan empire
• Sanchi and the Stupa
• Relics and the symbolism of the Stupa
• Absence and presence: representing the Buddha in symbols
• Narrative sculpture: the life of the Buddha

3. The image of the Buddha

• Identifying the Buddha: the posture
• Identifying the Buddha: the head
• Identifying the Buddha: the hand gestures
• Buddhas, Bodhisattvas and the Jatakas
• Style and the development of the Indian Buddha

4. Who's who in Hindu India

• Hindu and Buddhist art
• Shiva
• Vishnu
• Devi
• Know your deity

5. Approaching the Hindu temple

• The foundations of form
• Ritual and function
• Meaning and symbolism
• Approaching the Hindu temple

6. Seeing God – Hindu art and ritual

• Image and ritual in Hinduism
• Contexts for viewing: temple and museum
• Architecture and sculptural programmes

7. Mosques and mausolea

• India and the Islamic mosque
• Technology and design at the first mosque in Delhi
• The Mughals and the Taj Mahal

8. Paintings for the Mughal emperor

• Artists at the Mughal court
• Buddhist and Jain painting
• Islamic book illustration and European sources
• Looking at Mughal painting

9. Art from the Rajput courts

• The Mughals and the Rajputs
• Sources and style
• Portraits and epic tales

10. Colonialism and modernity 1750-1950

• European encounters with South Asia
• Indian paintings for the British
• Colonial art and the foundations of Indian modernism
• Architecture, empire and the Nineteenth-Century ‘Dilemma of Style’

To participate in the course you will need to have regular access to the Internet and you will need to buy the following paperback book:

Mitter, Partha: Indian Art (Oxford History of Art) (POUP, Oxford, 2001)  ISBN 0192842218

To earn credit (CATS points) for your course you will need to register and pay an additional £10 fee for each course you enrol on. You can do this by ticking the relevant box at the bottom of the enrolment form or when enrolling online. If you do not register when you enrol, you have up until the course start date to register and pay the £10 fee.

See more information on CATS point

Coursework is an integral part of all online courses and everyone enrolled will be expected to do coursework, but only those who have registered for credit will be awarded CATS points for completing work at the required standard. If you are enrolled on the Certificate of Higher Education you need to indicate this on the enrolment form but there is no additional registration fee.

Assignments are not graded but are marked either pass or fail.

All students who successfully complete this course, whether registered for credit or not, are eligible for a Certificate of Completion. Completion consists of submitting the final course assignment. Certificates will be available, online, for those who qualify after the course finishes.

This course aims to introduce students to the art of South Asia by:

• Examining a range of approaches to understanding works of art from South Asia.
• Discussing specific case-studies alongside directed reading.

This course will:

• Provide an overview of the religious and cultural history of the Indian Subcontinent over 2000 years.
• Introduce the main developments in the history of South Asian art in this period, including Buddhist and Hindu architecture and sculpture, paintings and architecture from the Rajput and Mughal courts, and the impact of European colonialism.
• Examine the religious, ritual, social and political contexts in which these buildings and objects were made and used.

• Guided reading of texts.
• Group asynchronous discussion of issues, vocabulary and specific objects/images.
• Individual internet research on specific images or topics.
• Questions to be answered in personal folders.

By the end of this course students will be able to understand:

• The religious, social and political contexts for the production and use of South Asian art and architecture.
• The vocabulary appropriate for the analysis of South Asian art and architecture.
• The broad chronological and historical development of South Asian art from the 3rd century BC to the present.
• The ways in which the presentation of South Asian art, whether in the context of a museum, temple, or exhibition, affects our perceptions of it.

By the end of this course students will have gained the following skills:

• The ability to critically analyse sculpture, paintings and architecture from South Asia using appropriate vocabulary.
• The ability to constructively criticise the approaches and methods of art historians.

You will be set two pieces of work for the course. The first of 500 words is due halfway through your course. This does not count towards your final outcome but preparing for it, and the feedback you are given, will help you prepare for your assessed piece of work of 1,500 words due at the end of the course. The assessed work is marked pass or fail.

English Language Requirements

We do not insist that applicants hold an English language certification, but warn that they may be at a disadvantage if their language skills are not of a comparable level to those qualifications listed on our website. If you are confident in your proficiency, please feel free to enrol. For more information regarding English language requirements please follow this link: https://www.conted.ox.ac.uk/about/english-language-requirements

FHEQ level 4, 10 weeks, approx 10 hours per week, therefore a total of about 100 study hours.