Indians live in many centuries at once, that is, they live in a
historical continuum—the past informs the present. The Polsky
collections of Indian art—primarily paintings from the later
periods of Indian history (sixteenth to nineteenth century) and
augmented with works as diverse as terracottas from the second century
B.C.E. and contemporary photographs—evoke the idea of connections
among disparate strands of Indian culture and history. The striking
range of the collections also reflects Cynthia and Leon Polsky’s
keenly felt engagement with India and its culture ever since their
first visit in 1960.
In the Realm of Gods and Kings celebrates the Polskys’ deeply
personal connection with India, as students, visitors, collectors,
and patrons. Thus, the exhibition comprises selected pieces from
the Polskys’ personal collections, their gifts to their children
and to the Metropolitan Museum of Art, as well as works acquired
by curators at the Metropolitan Museum of Art with generous funds
given by the Polskys.
This exhibition is divided into two sections: The Realm of Gods
and The Realm of Kings. The groupings and the subsections within
them are meant to suggest rather than proscribe clear-cut classifications.
Thus, works are organized in loose thematic categories, allowing
for unusual juxtapositions. In this exhibition, viewers are invited
to make imaginative connections between images, to open their eyes
and minds to new insights, and to engage in a creative act that
fuses seemingly disparate elements into an experience of intuition
and wonder. |