Rapture: The Art of Indian Textiles

The book is the spinning tale of Indian textiles that have captured the imagination of people from world over.The author has to offer interesting insights to the `history of textiles' in India. The book explains that much of the Indian textile designs evolved during the Muslim rule. This seems to be the reason for the formal and repetitive arrangements, elegant foliate motives. Thus we see that patterns are not entirely unique and have adopted the symmetrical linear geometric and arabesque patterns to the likes of Islamic Art. These textiles were created for the royal palaces, temples and wealthy Europeans and were employed for ostentatious occasions.But, it is sad that Indian cloth of everyday usage was simply discarded and is thus not available for study. Nonetheless, one may still marvel over the eternal moments of an archer holding the bow, women chatting or lovers embracing, these moments seem to bring back the past and never fade. One may enjoy in this book the showcases of some of the most remarkable Indian textiles to have survived time. Some of these have never been published and others have made rare appearances in journals that have long been forgotten. It thus offers new research areas in the `History of Indian Textiles'.

Lucid narrative and exquisite illustrations make this a worthy addition to any collection of archival information on the textile traditions and evolution of decorative art motif .