MANAKU OF GULER

BN Goswamy

Indian miniature art has largely been classified by the royal courts for which it was produced. The artists themselves have been rendered anonymous, unlike in post-Renaissance European art. BN Goswamy’s life’s work as an art historian has been, in part, to recover the identities of those who painted these acclaimed works. A decade ago he published a thoroughly researched book on Nainsukh, a seventeenth-century miniature painter from Guler in Himachal Pradesh. Goswamy’s new book reconstructs the life and work of Nainsukh’s brother, Manaku, a brilliant miniature painter in his own right, of whom much less is known.

Niyogi books, 512 pages, Rs 4,000