RT Article
T1 The Cross and the Lotus Flower: Reinventing Christian Art in Early Modern India
JF The sixteenth century journal
VO 52
IS 2
SP 277
OP 312
A1 Benay, Erin
LA English
PB Sixteenth Century Journal Publishers, Inc.
YR 2021
UL https://www.ixtheo.de/Record/1833209621
AB It has long been acknowledged that the success of the Jesuit mission in Goa, India, was due in part to its strategic use of art and architecture to promote the ideals of the order and to garner local support. This article instead focuses on art produced in the modern-day state of Kerala, where the advent of a material culture of Christianity was complicated by a preexisting community of Christians who trace their lineage to the arrival of Saint Thomas the Apostle in the first century. This essay argues that it was through the incorporation of Hindu motifs and ideology in these objects that Thomas Christians forged and preserved their own religious identities despite the encroachment of the Jesuits. In so doing, the practice of "global" Renaissance art history is expanded to account for the pluralistic and performative function of art in the contact zone between cultures.
K1 CHRISTIAN art & symbolism
K1 GOA (India : State)
K1 HINDU art & symbolism
K1 Jesuit history
K1 Jesuit missions
K1 Jesuits
K1 KERALA (India)
K1 Material Culture