Considered last word in India's miniature painting, art historian B N Goswamy dies

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Last Updated19/11/2023

He was an expert of the Pahari School of painting.
He first introduced the idea in his essay “Pahari Painting: The Family as Basis of Style” published in the journal Marg in 1968.
The mobility between different centres of patronage meant that the existing system of categorising miniatures according to the courts that commissioned them — Kangra, Guler, Basohli, Chamba and so on — was not appropriate.
He recognized that the painting families had recognisable techniques and stylistic idiosyncrasies instead of courts.
He carefully studied the difference between paintings produced in the family workshops of the Rajput and Pahari courts and the Mughal ateliers.

He is the author of over 25 books on art and culture including the recently released Indian Cat: Stories, Paintings, Poetry and Proverbs.
The book is one of his prominent contributions to art history has been his ability to highlight the role of family and lineage in the development of miniature painting in India.
In his 2011 book Nainsukh of Guler: A Great Indian Painter from a Small Hill-State (Niyogi Books) rescued master miniaturist Nainsukh from oblivion
In The Spirit of Indian Painting (2014, Penguin Random House India), he celebrated
- Dynasties of forgotten artists through his encounters
- Readings of 101 great works of art painted between 1100 and 1900,
- Ranging from Jain manuscripts to Rajasthani, Mughal, Pahari and Deccani miniatures, to Company School of paintings.
He was a Co-curator of the landmark 2011 exhibition “The Way of the Masters: The Great Artists of India, 1100-1900”, held at Museum Rietberg in Zurich and New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art.

He would recite poetry in Persian, Urdu and Hindi, and was a wonderful orator who kept his audience spellbound
He was the Padma Shri and the Padma Bhushan awardee.
Like Ananda Coomaraswamy, his writings involved thorough research and expressed complex thought processes in a simple manner.
Goswamy has also taught generations how to read the works of miniature paintings.