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Crafts Museum |
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| The institution of the museum, aimed at housing
objects of antiquity and curiosity, is of western origin. Indians
themselves did not have a tradition of setting up museums of
fragmented sculptures, rusted swords and out-of-context paintings.
Broken images were immersed in holy water, worn out metal objects
were melted down to cast new ones, and terracotta votive objects
were left to decay and merge with the very earth from which
they were created. |
| The core collection of the Crafts Museum was
actually put together to serve as reference material for the
craftsmen who were increasingly losing touch with their own
traditions in terms of materials, techniques, designs and aesthetics
of their arts and crafts due to the sudden changes caused by
modern industrialization. Here the craftsman feels free to confine
to his tradition or to innovate in response to his new contemporary
environment. |
| The large permanent collection of 20,000 items
of folk and tribal arts, crafts and textiles is housed in a
concrete, but almost ‘invisible’ building. Charles
Correa, the architect, had a challenge before him – on
the one hand to provide a pucca building for safe preservation
and display of the rare art objects, but on the other, not to
let the building be so imposing that it would belittle the humbler
objects collected from village homes. The scale and appearance
of the building had to be such that it would not attempt to
upstage its ancient neighbour, the Purana Qila on the one side
and the Village Complex of the Museum on the other. |
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| Consequently the low-lying building has old carved
wooden doors and windows from Gujarat and Rajasthan, central
courtyards having champa trees, tulsi shrines and a monumental
temple-car coexist in this ‘modern’ building not
as revivalist ethnic chic exercise, but as a contemporary juxtaposition
of past traditions in a modern building meant for a modern Indian
Crafts Museum. |
| The museum’s collection, built over a period
of thirty years, comprises bronze images; lamps and incense
burners; ritual accessories; utensils and other items of everyday
use; wood and stone carvings; papier mache; ivories, dolls,
toys, puppets and masks; jewellery; decorative metalware including
bidri work; paintings; terracotta; cane and bamboo work and
a large number of textiles, from different regions of India. |
| Galleries of folk and tribal arts and crafts,
aristocratic objects, and that of traditional Indian textiles,
display selected objects within these categories which are unavoidably
overlapping as the culture itself. Moreover, there is a ‘Visual
Store’ for reference, comprising about 15,000 objects
which can be used by scholars, designers, craftsmen and interested
public for study and research. While brief captions provide
basic information about the displayed objects, for further information
the Museum’s catalogue could be consulted. |
| The Crafts Museum Shop on the premises sells
books, picture-postcards and a whole range of exquisite contemporary
handicrafts. The objective of the shop is to sell original creations
of the finest Indian craftspersons and not to market mechanically
replicated souvenir. |
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