Decentering the Study of Female Body in Indian Art
Presentation is included in Panel 11: Art, Economy, and Music in India
Abstract
This paper addresses the paucity which exists pertaining to the study of breasts in Indian art and literature. Breasts which have been adorned, appreciated, represented everywhere in Indian culture, has seldom received any scholarly attention. With almost no intervention on this aspect, there lies no consistent historiography on this topic which has created a huge gap in the study of the female body as a whole. In the Indian Brahmanical imagination breasts have been depicted in various ways, designated as a source of nourishment, fertility, eroticism, sexuality, empowerment and destruction. It is one of the most exaggerated parts of the female body in the realm of Pan-Indian art but rarely do we find the physiological and psychological discourses in the realm of art history. Despite an array of roles in the Indian sensibility, it has barely been studied. This paper looks at the importance of ‘the breast’ as an independent symbol. It tries to engage with the depiction of breast as an archetype in the Brahmanical imagination. Moving away from the conventional approach of looking at the breast as a bodily feature or a physical attribute, this work investigates and questions the generalized notion of fertility and bountifulness in the realm of art history. This study tries to locate the motif of the breasts in their various representations in mythology, poetic literature and plastic arts, engaging with the multi-faceted engagement of female breasts in the realm of art, religion and society.
Decentering the Study of Female Body in Indian Art
RCC Small Ballroom
This paper addresses the paucity which exists pertaining to the study of breasts in Indian art and literature. Breasts which have been adorned, appreciated, represented everywhere in Indian culture, has seldom received any scholarly attention. With almost no intervention on this aspect, there lies no consistent historiography on this topic which has created a huge gap in the study of the female body as a whole. In the Indian Brahmanical imagination breasts have been depicted in various ways, designated as a source of nourishment, fertility, eroticism, sexuality, empowerment and destruction. It is one of the most exaggerated parts of the female body in the realm of Pan-Indian art but rarely do we find the physiological and psychological discourses in the realm of art history. Despite an array of roles in the Indian sensibility, it has barely been studied. This paper looks at the importance of ‘the breast’ as an independent symbol. It tries to engage with the depiction of breast as an archetype in the Brahmanical imagination. Moving away from the conventional approach of looking at the breast as a bodily feature or a physical attribute, this work investigates and questions the generalized notion of fertility and bountifulness in the realm of art history. This study tries to locate the motif of the breasts in their various representations in mythology, poetic literature and plastic arts, engaging with the multi-faceted engagement of female breasts in the realm of art, religion and society.