Folding and Faulting: The Formation of ‘Himalayan Art’

This essay considers how Himalayan art is defined today, how it got to be demarcated in this manner, and how it has been investigated in the past. My postulations are trifold. First, Himalayan art as a discrete domain of scholarly inquiry emerged in Western Europe and India in the nineteenth century and crystallized as a subfield in these regions over the long twentieth century. Second, the subfield’s early development was connected to competing outside interests to map and remould the region’s economic, political, and cultural landscape. Third, the burgeoning of Himalayan art as a scholarly subfield today may be linked to the efforts of many stakeholders with varied interests. Interdisciplinary teams of specialists who are assiduously documenting, interpreting, and conserving historical landscapes in the mountain range are one influential subset of stakeholders. Auctioneers – who are just as eager in sustaining the interest of potential buyers in finely crafted portable artefacts as they are in wanting to avoid wading into the troubled waters of unsettled political boundaries and the illicit trade in artefacts – are another powerful subset of stakeholders.