Art, the integral vision: a volume of essay in felicitation of kapila vatsyayan

A superb assemblage of 26 essays: in honour of Dr. Kapila Vatsyayan, the book attempts to conjure up the integral vision of art exploring, as it does, the underlying unity of different disciplines. Written by distinguished Indian and foreign scholars: artists, art historians, archaeologists, anthropologists, scientists, philosophers, and litterateurs, who have shared or subscribed to Dr. Vatsyayan’s holistic vision of arts, these essays look for the linkages that have existed within the arts, between the arts, and across the cultures focusing, contextually, on the form, the content, and the vision of art in terms of time and space. With at once stimulating, alternative viewpoints available to humankind today, the authors consider space, time and consciousness as they are related to, and expressed in, metaphor, symbol and creative process. Together with cross-cultural comparisons of art, the book also explores the future of man as an artist.

Art: The Integral Vision, besides the Editors’ Introduction giving an overview on the presentations, is blessed by His Holiness the Dalai Lama’s personal message.

A foremost authority on Indian art and culture, Dr. Kapila Vatsyayan is well known to all serious scholars of art history, religion, philosophy, and cosmology. A prolific author and recipient of several honours, including the prestigious Padma Shree (1990), she has convincingly spelt out the unifying principles of cultural plurality, and the interdependence and interrelatedness of creative arts. This holistic vision unmistakably manifest in her writings has come to finest fruition in her setting up (in 1985) the Indira Gandhi National Centre for the Arts (IGNCA), New Delhi. This is a fascinating book for wide-ranging specialists and students interested in the mathematical, geometrical, metaphysical, astrophysical, cosmological, philosophical, psychological, historical, mythological and metaphorical understanding of art, especially the Indian art.