Caught in the Wheels of Commerce? The Commercialization of Madhubani painting in India

This chapter examines the implications of the globalization and commodification of the art trade in contemporary India. Market forces and globalization appear to have a significant impact on the artistic production in the visual arts in India, and it is revealing how traditional art schools such as Madhubani painting are being transformed by India’s inclusion in the global art market. For instance, the India Art Fair (Delhi) and the Kochi Biennale in Kerala now offer an international platform for the marketing of old and new art forms, and as a result, these works are increasingly sought after and acquired by both Indian and Western consumers. In addition, the digital revolution has paved the way for novel ways of marketing art. Artists are adapting to these new realities, for instance, by forming collectives, which allows them to better negotiate with dealers and other intermediaries. Based on fieldwork undertaken in the two artist villages - Ranti and Jitwarpur - in the state of Bihar, we discuss the strategies pursued by rural artists practicing Madhubani art in order to benefit from the increased demand for their work. In doing so, this chapter takes stock of the processes of commodification of traditional art, and ascertain how widespread commercialization may be altering the function and even meaning of indigenous art

The end of the art connoisseur? Experts and knowledge production in the visual arts in the digital age

In this digital age, declarations surface on the death of the expert and the democratization of information. Crowd wisdom is seen as the new guide in constructing and evaluating knowledge. In the context of the art world, this tension between the amateurs and the experts becomes particularly pronounced as popular meets high culture. Questions arise such as wh

Art Markets

The advent of digitization has had a profound impact on the art market and its institutions. In this chapter, we focus on the market for visual arts as it finds its expression in (among other) paintings, prints, drawings, photographs, sculpture and the like. These artistic disciplines claim the lion’s share of the global art trade and its objects are prominently featured by museums and galleries in both old and new art centers worldwide. Digital delivery has not only altered the content of the visual arts, but also the manner in which art is traded, consumed and valuated. The various actors in the art market have embraced digitization in its many guises and forms, and its online applications, albeit at di

In search of Netherlandish art: Cultural transmission and artistic exchanges in the Low Countries, an introduction

This article forms the introduction to this special issue of De Zeventiende Eeuw. It puts the case studies presented in this issue into a broader theoretical perspective, highlights connections and differences, and puts forward new research questions

Comparative environmental law and orientalism:reading beyond the 'text' of traditional knowledge protection

This article uses traditional knowledge as a case study to address multiple discussions in the field of comparative law. First, it addresses the theoretical challenge of the role of comparative law as a critical research tool in the development of environmental law. Second, within the context of transnational legal processes, it questions the extent to which comparative law as a method can further the relationship between different levels of law making by distinct legal actors. It is timely to bring mainstream comparative law into conversation with critical perspectives from other disciplines such as postcolonial theory and poststructuralism when studying non-Western law. These issues have been firmly placed on the research agenda of comparative law scholars for quite a few years but studying these questions from the perspective of traditional knowledge brings a new outlook to these debates

The test of time. Art encyclopedia and the formation of the canon of seventeenth-century painters in the Low Countries

__Abstract__ This paper deals with the process of canon formation for Flemish and Dutch painters from the seventeenth century onwards. We examine how the essential art-historical treatises and art encyclopedias since Houbraken’s Grote Schouburgh der Nederlandsche Konstschilders en Schilderessen ranked and evaluated the leading painters, based on the attention given to them in these volumes. Using standardized z-scores, we map the relative importance the selected artists received in these publications over the three centuries. In doing so, we emphasize the path-dependency and the dimension of time in explaining the endurance of certain artists in the long run. From our research it emanates that the canon of Netherlandish painters is much more volatile than previously assumed

Size, Growth and Geographies of Creative Industries in India

This chapter explores quantitative data on CI enterprises and workers at the state and district levels of India and documents clustering patterns of CIs. Overall, there has been a rapid growth of CI, but some specific sub-sectors, such as creative services, publishing and print media, and design, have experienced significant declines. We find that the southern and western states of India have better 61=104 developed creative economies. Additionally, the industrially developed cities, Bengaluru, Hyderabad, Mumbai, Pune, Kolkata, and Noida, are the major clusters of the Indian creative economy. 12