Into India

The Museo Thyssen-Bornemisza (Madrid, Spain) is holding the first exhibition in Spain of a selection of South Asian paintings from the San Diego Museum of Art, California. The exhibition will offer visitors a unique opportunity to appreciate the entire evolution of Indian painting from the 12th to the mid-19th centuries through 106 paintings, prints and manuscripts. Together they reveal the remarkable capacity of the artists who created them to adapt and modify their traditional styles without losing their uniquely Indian character.

Assembled by Edwin Binney (1925-1986) and comprising nearly 1,500 works, this exceptional collection is defined by its encyclopaedic, academic nature, as a result of which it offers a comprehensive survey of the history of Indian art. Binney's aim was to ensure that every expert in South Asian artist found a key work in relation to their particular subject of research in his collection.
Indian painting varies considerably from region to region and also depends on period and class structure, although it also reveals shared characteristics that survive across time and geography, including the above-mentioned flexibility of the artists in question and in particular their minutely detailed, painstaking approach.

The use of extremely fine brushes, sometimes made with just two hairs, and of magnifying glasses allowed artists to paint these works, which are almost miniatures, encouraging the viewer to study them at length in order to appreciate the wealth of details in the depiction of figures, backgrounds and landscapes. Long years of such painstaking work meant that many artists went blind at an early age and had to abandon their craft. In addition, continuous exposure to the toxic substances of which the pigments were made, including arsenic, lead and mercury, ultimately affected their health.

Date: until May 20.
Location: Museo Thyssen-Bornemisza. Paseo del Prado, 8. 28014 Madrid. España.
Opening hours: from Tuesday to Saturday from 10am to 11pm. September 12 and 19 from 10am to 7pm.

See some of the artwoks in the following slideshow: