2016 – A.W. Mellon Lectures in the Fine Arts
65th A.W. Mellon Lectures in the Fine Arts,
The National Gallery of Art, Washington DC. Lectures:Spring 2016
To watch videos click on the lecture title.
The Thief Who Stole My Heart: The Material Life of Chola Bronzes from South India, c. 855–1280
Sixty-Fifth A. W. Mellon Lectures in the Fine Arts
Vidya Dehejia, Columbia University
In this six-part lecture series entitled The Thief Who Stole My Heart: The Material Life of Chola Bronzes from South India, c. 855–1280, art historian Vidya Dehejia discusses the work of artists of Chola India who created exceptional bronzes of the god Shiva, invoked as “Thief Who Stole My Heart.” Graceful, luminous sculptures of high copper content portrayed the deities as sensuous figures of sacred import. Every bronze is a portable image, carried through temple and town to participate in celebrations that combined the sacred with the joyous atmosphere of carnival. In these lectures, Dehejia discusses the images as tangible objects that interact in a concrete way with human activities and socioeconomic practices. She asks questions of this body of material that have never been asked before, concerning the source of wealth that enabled the creation of bronzes, the origin of copper not available locally, the role of women patrons, the strategic position of the Chola empire at the center of a flourishing ocean trade route between Aden and China, and the manner in which the Cholas covered the walls of their temples with thousands of inscriptions, converting them into public records offices. These sensuous portrayals of the divine gain their full meaning with critical study of information captured through a variety of lenses.
Part 1: Gods on Parade: Sacred Forms of Copper
Part 2: Shiva as “Victor of Three Forts”: Battling for Empire, 855–955
Part 3: Portrait of a Queen: Patronage of Dancing Shiva, c. 941–1002
Part 4: An Eleventh-Century Master Sculptor: Ten Thousand Pearls Adorn a Bronze
Part 5: Chola Obsession with Sri Lanka and the Silk Route of the Sea in the Eleventh and Twelfth Centuries
Part 6: Worship in Uncertain Times: The Secret Burial of Bronzes in 1310
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www.nga.gov/content/ngaweb/research/casva/meetings/mellon-lectures-in-the-fine-arts.html (A. W. Mellon Lectures in the Fine Arts)