German-speaking exiles and the writing of Indian art history

• Main Author: Devika Singh
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: Department of Art History, University of Birmingham 2017-12-01
• Series: Journal of Art Historiography
• Subjects: India; Germany; Austria; exile; migration; nationalism; canon; modernism; Ernst Cohn-Wiener; Hermann Goetz; Rudolf von Leyden
• Online Access: https://arthistoriography.files.wordpress.com/2017/11/singh.pdf

The German and Austrian origins of some of India’s leading art historians from the 1930s to the 1960s is an understudied dimension of art historiography that questions the knowledge hierarchies of the British Empire and the role of foreigners in Indian nation building. The article focuses on three figures who held key positions in the Indian art world (Ernst Cohn-Wiener, Hermann Goetz and Rudolf von Leyden) and argues that such German-speaking exiles played a determining role in urgent debates of the time. Participating in the circulation of foreign art and ideas in India, especially in Bombay and Baroda, they significantly impacted on the selective process of the history of art. Far from propagating an esoteric, Hindu-centred perspective on Indian art, as did many Indian nationalist art historians, émigrés championed an inclusive take on art by integrating its Muslim as well as Hindu heritage. In addition they helped launch some of India’s most innovative artists. The article thus opens up broader discussions on art and nationalism, the building of a canon and the appropriation of modernism before and after Indian independence.