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Baby!
In Association with Tara Publishing Throughout India, images of babies appear everywhere—on posters, in calendars, and on billboards. And these are no ordinary babies—Doctor baby, Scientist baby, Apollo rocket baby—all make their appearance. Babies are revered for their qualities of absolute innocence, guilelessness, and of course, when it boils down to it—their cuteness. This is the first ever collection of these wonderful images. They have a unique graphic style and are colorful, highly unusual, and very funny. Sirish Rao is a novelist, writer, and editor based in Southern India. He is a partner in the publishing company Tara Publishing and is involved in a multitude of varying projects.
- GenresArt
96 pages, Hardcover
First published September 1, 2003
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January 10, 2011
When Krishna's mother caught her toddler son stealing butter, she forced open his mouth to see how much he had taken. Inside she discovered the entire world.
Rao suggests that that myth could be the source for India's obsession with and idealization of babies. He also admits that babies are simply cute. They are certainly cute, if also somewhat unsettling, when featured on baby posters, a genre that developed out of calendar art and saw its heyday in the 1970's and 1980's. In those early years the images were based on paintings by mostly anonymous artists, whereas more recent products are glossily produced photographs digitally manipulated and of much less visual or psychological interest.
Since many images came from Western advertising, the subjects were often plump, Anglo children. But this apparently bothered no one. Although some mythic scenes were depicted, more often these babies optimistically represented the future of India. They were doctors, scientists, artists, or simply the smiling harbingers of good things to come.
This book has the square format and padded cover you might expect to find in a Hallmark gift shop -- if there are still Hallmark gift shops. But inside is a surreal world that would hardly recommend the book as a sweet gift for new parents.
Rao suggests that that myth could be the source for India's obsession with and idealization of babies. He also admits that babies are simply cute. They are certainly cute, if also somewhat unsettling, when featured on baby posters, a genre that developed out of calendar art and saw its heyday in the 1970's and 1980's. In those early years the images were based on paintings by mostly anonymous artists, whereas more recent products are glossily produced photographs digitally manipulated and of much less visual or psychological interest.
Since many images came from Western advertising, the subjects were often plump, Anglo children. But this apparently bothered no one. Although some mythic scenes were depicted, more often these babies optimistically represented the future of India. They were doctors, scientists, artists, or simply the smiling harbingers of good things to come.
This book has the square format and padded cover you might expect to find in a Hallmark gift shop -- if there are still Hallmark gift shops. But inside is a surreal world that would hardly recommend the book as a sweet gift for new parents.
Displaying 1 of 1 review