Grafted Arts: Art Making and Taking in the Struggle for Western India, 1760-1910

Grafted Arts explores how the violent and creative processes of suturing arts were used by Maratha military rulers and British East India Company officials to engage in diplomacy, wage war, compete for prestige, and generate devotion in western India in the eighteenth century. It conceptualizes the artistic combinations as "graft," acknowledging the shifting dynamics among agents who assembled such materials and the methods of empire-building that recast artistic production and collection. These "grafted arts" remain instigators of nationalist agitation today.

Format: Hardback
Length: 320 pages
Publication date: 24 May 2022
Publisher: Paul Mellon Centre for Studies in British Art

Grafted Arts explores the intricate relationship between Maratha military rulers and British East India Company officials in the eighteenth century, where the arts were used as a powerful tool for diplomacy, warfare, prestige, and devotion. This book delves into the concept of "graft," acknowledging the violent and creative processes involved in suturing arts and the exchange of goods and ideas. By examining grafted arts from various perspectives, including Maratha and British, artists and patrons, soldiers and collectors, the book charts the methods of empire-building that reshaped artistic production and collection in western India and beyond. It reveals how this mercenary approach to artistry propagated a diverse range of mixed, fractured, and plundered arts, which continued to influence nationalist agitation in India and Britain throughout the nineteenth century.

This book is distributed for the Paul Mellon Centre for Studies in British Art, a prestigious institution dedicated to the study and appreciation of British art and culture. The Centre's mission is to promote a deeper understanding of British art and its historical context, and to foster international collaboration and dialogue among scholars and artists. Grafted Arts contributes to this important work by shedding light on the complex and multifaceted relationship between art, power, and empire in the eighteenth century.

Weight: 1438g
Dimension: 223 x 278 x 27 (mm)
ISBN-13: 9781913107284