Multisensory CAM Exhibition Courts the Senses of South Asia

Image courtesy Cincinnati Art Museum

The Cincinnati Art Museum’s newest exhibition is suited for those who yearn to escape into distant lands and long past times. An immersive sensory experience, Longing: Painting from the Pahari Kingdoms of the Northwest Himalayas features colorful court paintings from the 17th, 18th, and 19th centuries of present-day India.

The more than 40 manuscript-style court paintings on display—portable artworks originating from the small Pahari region of the northwest Himalayas—were created to forge political partnerships, court romantic pursuits, and honor divine aspirations. The courts in this area would commission artists to create works as a show of power and devotion or as gifts for neighboring kingdoms. These paintings were uniquely shaped by the politics and cultural exchanges of the era, forging connections between both ruling powers and artists.

According to Ainsley Cameron, CAM’s curator of South Asian art, Islamic art, and antiquities, while the exhibition’s themes are diverse, there is one thing that joins them all. “What I found in each of them was this connection to emotion and the presentation of the very evocative, universal feeling of longing.”

This longing is evident in the pieces on the display, from the outstretched arms of lovers to a sage prostrating himself before a god in hopes of divine connection. In “A Lady on a Moonlit Terrace Pines for Her Absent Lover,” circa 1775, a woman gazes up at the moon with her hands clasped together, longing for romantic connection.

The paintings are accompanied by scent, touch, and sound experiences, meant to enhance the art’s “bhava,” a Sanskrit word that refers to the emotion or mood conveyed by this art aesthetic.

Cameron says the decision to make Longing a multisensory experience came from the question of how to “unlock” these paintings and convey emotions to visitors. “It’s something that was able to communicate very succinctly to people who might not know these paintings,” shes says. “They may not be familiar to them, but they’d be able to understand how to connect from an empathetic way.”

Image courtesy Cincinnati Art Museum

From this idea sprung the sound of drums, sarangis, and tablas. The echoes of chirping frogs and water join a woman waiting for her absent lover in the nighttime, the curves of a hookah accompany a smoking ruler and his attendants, and the smell of a thunderstorm hovers over the gods Rama and Lakshmana taking shelter in a cave. The exhibition’s nine soundscapes were developed with the help of University of Cincinnati ethnomusicology professor Stefen Fiol.

Warm hues and blooming foliage trapped in small frames evoke feelings of opulence and abundance, highlighted by the use of gold alongside opaque watercolor in select works. The art is crafted upon handmade paper using layers of thin pigment, creating a vivid result.

“There’s almost a three dimensionality to these works, because the vibrant use of pigment and color as they come into conversation with each other just sort of really come alive,” Cameron says.

As it connects across history and oceans, Longing also has ties to modern times. The exhibition is a product of a larger research project by curators of South Asian art collections at CAM in partnership with the Cleveland Museum of Art and the National Museum of Asian Art in Washington, D.C. Curators from the three institutions are working together with scholars based in India on a research project that studies and displays these artworks, most of which are from the Catherine Glynn Benkaim and Ralph Benkaim Collection. The Benkaims were collectors of Indian paintings in the mid- to late-20th century.

According to Cameron, the research project has led to a new publication and has contributed to new scholarly debates around these types of court paintings.

Even if visitors do not have any South Asian ancestry, Cameron says she hopes that they leave the museum having formed new emotional connections with these artworks. “Through the way of arranging these paintings around emotion and using the multisensory as a way to approach them, we break down some of these cultural barriers and allow people to connect with artwork, because they are human, because they experience art.”

Longing: Painting from the Pahari Kingdoms of the Northwest Himalayas will be on view through June 7 in the Vance Waddell and Mayerson Galleries at the Cincinnati Art Museum. Entry is included in CAM’s free general admission.