How to See Water in an Age of Unusual Droughts: Ecological Aesthetics in the Little Ice Age, Mathura

Presenter:

· Sugata Ray University of California, Berkeley (Berkeley, United States of America)

Panel:

12 | Designing Water: Morphology, Ecology and Histories of Waterscapes in South Asia

Timeslot:

07/28 | 16:10-16:30 UTC+2/CEST

Abstract

The Little Ice Age (ca. 1550–1850), a climatic period marked by glacial expansion in Europe, brought droughts of unprecedented intensity to South Asia. In drought-ravaged north India, the beginnings of the Little Ice Age not only corresponded with the emergence of new techniques of riparian architecture in the pilgrimage center of Mathura that emphasized the materiality of flowing water but also saw the enunciation of a new theology of Krishna worship that centralized the veneration of the natural environment. Tracing the intersections among artistic practices, theological economies, and the ecocatastrophes of the Little Ice Age, my talk aims to generate an ideation of an eco art history that brings together the environmental and the aesthetic.