Le Génie de l’art indien

Apr 4, 2023 | All, Publication

Presentation

We are pleased to announce that the following book will be available in bookshops on 7 April:

Lefèvre, Vincent. Le Génie de l’art indien. Paris : 2023, Belles Lettres.

About the Author

Vincent Lefèvre, archivist-paleographer and doctor in Indian studies, is general curator of heritage. Director of conservation and collections at the Guimet Museum, he has been heading the French archaeological cooperation mission in Bangladesh since 2013. Vincent Lefèvre is also a member of our research team, the GREI.

Abstract

Faced with the artistic productions of the Indian world, the Western viewer often hesitates between fascination and incomprehension. Confused by an iconography that escapes him and a feeling of exuberance, he feels that he does not have the necessary codes to appreciate it. The aim of this book is to provide keys to understanding this iconographic and architectural production.

Thanks to its 150 colour illustrations and the numerous textual sources cited, Vincent Lefèvre’s book allows us to enter into the heart of the genius of Indian art, to understand how it is conceived, produced and apprehended, to analyse its relations with the artistic productions of other regions of the world and to describe its achievements. Throughout the pages, an art of suggestion rather than explicitness emerges, one that summons the viewer’s imagination at every moment.