India’s art and art history emerge as a very powerful field for invoking the Indian nation. This process predates Independence and the coming of age of the nation-state. For nearly four decades before 1947, if not more, Indian art history was being shaped as a powerfully nationalised modern discipline. It was through the framework of this modern discipline that the ancient and medieval schools of Indian architecture, sculpture and painting were incorporated into a narrative of nationhood, mapping the time and space, the history and territory, of a new India. The nation in the making found some of its strongest cultural proponents as much in the commu­nity of India’s art historians as in the community of modern artists.

The practice of modern Indian art had been taking on a fairly important national stance since the early 20th century. The most important movement that consciously broke with western academic art conventions and aspired to evolve an alternative idiom of oriental-style painting was spearheaded by Abanindranath Tagore and his students in...