Split Second: Why Indian Paintings?

There is one way in which Indian paintings were inappropriate material for a split-second experiment: these paintings definitely weren’t designed to be glimpsed quickly.  “In your face” impact isn’t a quality many of them were supposed to have. With the exception of the oversized painting illustrated here, they were all gathered or bound into manuscripts; their aristocratic owners held them in their hands or on a table. In intimate groups or solo, the viewers went slowly through the pages, looking at the paintings as a form of entertainment. Book illustrations require a different style and approach to image-making than wall-hung paintings that might be seen from across the room. The many tiny details that you can find in Indian manuscript paintings are a result of their relatively small size, but they are due even more to the practice of looking at manuscripts closely and at length: the artist wanted the viewer to have plenty to look at, to make new discoveries every time he or she opened the book.  So these illustrations were rarely judged on their ability to make a split-second impression—until now!

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