Despite the Puerto Rican parade that clogged New York's Fifth Avenue for most of Sunday, it was a poor deterrent when it came to heading for the Met, where three ongoing exhibitions are a current highlight - the impact of Chinese aesthetics on Western fashion (China: Through the Looking Glass), a tiny but extremely well put-together segment on Vincent van Gogh from its collection (Van Gogh: Irises and Roses), and my focus for the day, the highly publicised Sultans of Deccan India, 1500-1700: Opulence and Fantasy. Private reviews had been mixed, ranging from "Oh, it's splendid!" to "You must see it at least once", but the tone was set at the information counter where the young intern gushed, "It's my most favourite show at the whole Met."
Disclaimer: I'm a sucker for royal history and the patronage that it resulted in the subcontinent, and here it was on display once again in all its manifold aspects. Five regions of the fertile Deccan were represented, and though the exhibition was somewhat smaller than I had hoped - thankfully, perhaps, given how tiring the Met can prove - it made up for it by being beautifully mounted and tightly curated. Works for the exhibition had come on loan from museums and private collectors around the world (the startling absence of these from the National Museum in New Delhi speaking volumes about our cultural vacuum), and expectedly began with a display of stunning diamonds from Golconda, not only among the world's largest and most significant, but forming part of the impressive Al Thani collection in Qatar.
Those radiant stones set the tone for the rest of the exhibition. The Deccan, which attracted traders, poets, writers from Iran, Turkey, Africa and Europe, was rich materially as well as culturally, and the heartbeat of the exhibition is a selection of miniature paintings, several of which are familiar for being published in art books from the region. To see them in person, to be able to enjoy magnified views extolling the artists' extraordinary command when it came to expressing emotion in the minutest detail, was beyond belief. It made the rest of the exhibition - standards, carpets, calligraphy, textiles - pale in significance. Every bit of it was priceless, of course, but the curator seemed drawn by the infinite skill and wisdom of the artist who, here, was able to command and deliver the finest of the Deccan court in its majesty as well as grace.
That, and van Gogh, left barely enough time for the short walk around the block to the Neue Museum where an exhibition of paintings by Gustav Klimt on his muse Adele Bloch-Bauer was a highlight, though it was a set of portraits by Oskar Kokoschka (who inspired our own Walter Langhammer) that proved at least equally compelling. A separate level had Russian modernists (influenced by German modernism) that offered a glimpse of a body of artists and works many of whom remain unfamiliar to us.
If understanding art comes from exposure, New York does a magnificent job, with collections, exhibitions, catalogues and entire wings in museums made possible by grants from individuals, trusts, societies and foundations on a scale that we cannot even fathom in India. Whether because it is caused by official apathy or individual hyperbole about a state of helplessness can only be put to the test by belling the cat. Isn't it time that, instead of passing the buck, we can hope to see the best that Indian art - in all its splendoured facets - has to offer in India instead of, as usually happens, abroad?
Kishore Singh is a Delhi-based writer and art critic. These views are personal and do not reflect those of the organisation with which he is associated
