A Mediated Magic: The Indian Presence in Modernism 1880–1930

by Naman P. Ahuja

The exchanges with ideas Indian, and with Indians themselves, had a decisive impact that contributed to the eruption and shape of Modernism in the West. The book traces an intriguing history of how India was typecast in artistic, scientific, cultural and spiritual circles—as mediated for the stage by the Ballets Russes, Anna Pavlova, Léon Bakst, Gustav Holst, Stanislavsky and Tairov; in the arena of spiritual and cultural discourse by C.G. Jung, Helena Blavatsky, Annie Besant, Rabindranath Tagore, and Ananda Coomaraswamy; and in art, by Hilma af Klint, Wassily Kandinsky, Piet Mondrian and Natalia Goncharova, to name a few. This is a book that presents the greats of European art in astonishing new light.

184 pages, Hardcover

Published January 1, 2019