Meeting Benches World art in all forms

Lisa was born in Florence on June 15 1479. She was named Lisa, like a wife of her paternal grandfather. In 1538, her husband Francesco died of plague. Four years later, she became sick and was taken to the convent of St. Ursula, where she died and was buried July 15, 1542, at the age of 63 years. In the …

The painting has precise geometric rules, but the most important is symmetry with respect to the central axis, determined by the woman with the little girl. That painting was lent to The Art Institute of Chicago, where you can go to admire it. Imagine being inside a Sunday afternoon on the island of Grande-Jatte. Imagine that on that day you …

No, it is not a picture. Almost like a photographer, a famous painter has captured an image, without people he aware of it. The Night Watch (also known as the Civic Guard marching, or as The Company of Captain Frans Banning Cocq), is an oil painting on canvas on canvas 363 x 437 cm, made in 1642 by Rembrandt Harmenszoon …

Fifty-eight are the characters depicted in the fresco. Plato and Aristotle are in the center of the composition. Even your eyes – is instantly attracted to these figures, but not randomly, because they are the lines of the floor and the prospect of the building to make possible this colorful magic. As you have observed, the center of the scene …

A strange family, a pleasant story of a family “out of line”, in the throes of love, death and indissoluble family ties. Stories told with simplicity and tenderness. It all began when Babo was the first member of the Patel family to leave Madras, flying to London to further his education. Leafing through the pages of the novel, you find …

Tishani Doshi – graduated with a master’s degree in creative writing from the Johns Hopkins University – she is an Indian poet, journalist and dancer, and was born in the city of MADRAS in 1975, but currently she lives on a beach, between two fishing villages. Tishani’s debut novel (The pleasure seekers), was shortlisted for the Hindu Literary Prize, and …

ARPANA CAUR 1/3 – Born in New Delhi, Arpana Caur spent her college years studying literature. As an contemporary Indian artist, she is largely self-taught, but observing her work you can feel that she continue the line begun by Amrita Sher-Gil. She started looking at the architecture in Pahari miniatures that led to her creating strange, linear tensions vis-à-vis the …

Jaipur House, India Gate, New Delhi. Welcome at the NGMA where you find the distinct character of modern and contemporary Indian art. Uniquely positioned, it is a powerful synthesis of western aesthetic values, and conceptual elements of Indian art, of different mediums and sensibilities, of a long and vibrant history steeped in art, philosophy and culture. Visiting European Traveller Artists, …

BURNT POEMS – I am a half-burnt poem. Yes, you guessed right, a girl’s love poem. Girls’ love poems have seldom escaped fire: father’s fire, brother’s fire, even mother’s, an heirloom. Only some girls half-escape: those half-charred ones, we call Sylvia Plath, Anna Akhmatova or Kamala Das. Some girls, to escape fire, hide their desire under the veil of piety: …

Strange is that this novel – with short chapters and an external point of view – tells the daily life of a married couple, but the main theme is not what you might have imagined. Everything revolves around the Indian cuisine, along with its ingredients. Lena and a “him”, have been married for fifteen years, even though she is not …

A semi-realistic figurative painter, Patnaik has enjoyed much critical acclaim and popular appreciation over the past few years. Best known painter for his “Relations” series, that revolves around a semi-clad male and female figure captured in a series of complex, multiple and open ended postures. Always, human psyche and interpersonal relationships of people in society, is the underlying theme that …

HER SAFE HOUSE – Mother walking up a corridor with a stick, as frail as tissue paper, bunched on a stick. Moving up a corridor inch by inch, a hairball being pushed by a breeze, into her safe house, her sonless kitchen. BOMB SITE SEEN FROM A RAILWAY BRIDGE – As if the broken stumps were a girl’s starved shoulders: …

Samit Basu is the author of The Simoqin Prophecies, The Manticore’s Secret and The Unwaba Revelations, the three parts of The GameWorld Trilogy. Born 14 December 1979 in a Bengali Hindu family, Basu grew up in Calcutta. In 2007, Basu was declared one of India’s most promising ‘Emerging Indians’. Basu is a columnist, screenwriter, documentary filmmaker and freelance journalist writing …