Ragamala malcolm
- A ragamala, or “garland of ragas,” is a series of paintings of all the “relatives,” or variations, of the main ragas.
- Sri Raga, Lord and Lady Listening to Musicians, from a Ragamala series (15.24 x 11.75 cm).
- Deccan, 18th century.
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AN ILLUSTRATION FROM A RAGAMALA SERIES: BAIRADI RAGINI
MEWAR, CIRCA 1695
Opaque watercolor and gold on paper; verso inscribed, 'Bairadi'.
Image: 15 x 8 3/8 in. (38.2 x 21.3 cm);
Folio: 15 1/8 x 11 in. (38.4 x 28 cm)
Footnotes
As noted by Ebling in his review of the eighteen pages he documented, "The paintings of this set are extraordinary, not only in their size, but also in their rich composition and their almost epic content" (Ragamala Painting, Basel, 1973, p.181).
Pal speculated that Coomaraswamy likely acquired the set of ragamalas from Ajit Ghose, who was known to have full sets of Rajput ragamalas (see In Pursuit of the Past, Mumbai, 2015, p.53). Eight pages from this set were acquired by Denman Waldo Ross from Coomaraswamy in 1930 and gifted to the Fine Arts Museum, Boston the same year (see Pal, Ragamala Paintings in the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, Boston, 1967, nos.10, 18, 29, 39, 43, 57, 78 & 85). Another page from the series in the British Museum is published in Topsfield, Court Painting at Udaipur, Zurich, 2001, p.100, no.70; and two others
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Today’s post comes from Andi Ramsay, class of 2018 and Art Center student docent.
The current exhibition in the Art Center’s Focus Gallery is India in Miniature, a collection of small, opaque watercolor paintings, mostly album leaves, from India. The album leaves show a variety of subjects and are painted in different styles, but one genre of painting jumped out at me immediately: the ragamala paintings. A raga is a musical mode arranged in a specific sequence that provides a framework for a musical composition meant to evoke particular moods. There are six main ragas, each of which carries a unique theme on which variations are created by painters, musicians, and poets. A ragamala, or “garland of ragas,” is a series of paintings of all the “relatives,” or variations, of the main ragas. A ragini is one type of variation, seen as the consort or wife of the main raga which is construed as male. Most ragamalas have 36 parts, but some have as many as 110. The synesthetic aspect of ragamalas challenges viewers to imagine what the musical modes that accompany the pain
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THREE ILLUSTRATIONS TO RAGAMALA SERIES
Jaipur, Rajasthan, North-Western India, 19th century
THREE ILLUSTRATIONS TO RAGAMALA SERIES
Jaipur, Rajasthan, North-Western India, 19th century
Opaque pigments heightened with gold on paper, comprising three vertical compositions, each of similar size and illustrating various scenes from Ragamala series, including the Ramkali Ragini from the Hindola Raga, depicting the nayika holding an encrusted golden turban ornament in the shape of a feather, caught in conversation with a standing female attendant whilst comfortably seated in a courtly marble pavilion with floral pietra-dura inlays, 34cm x 24.5cm including the floral album borders; the Sindhuri Ragini, also part of the Hindola Raga, the composition depicting the nayika holding a trident, being served and assisted by two female maidens in a lavish palatial terrace, the scene departing here from the usual canon for this Ragini, traditionally portrayed as a nayika seated beside a body of water in which her two attendants swim naked, 33.8cm x 24.4cm including the f
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