The Art History of Meghalaya

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The Art History of Meghalaya undoubtedly the first of its kind has become the very important contribution to the subject. The book makes an attempt to give a historical interpretation to the birth and growth of the arts and also seeks to deduce and analyse the art concepts and practices and define the changes that have taken place in the present situation. The book makes an over-all review of the arts and crafts from all the angles that can be traced. The historical situations compatible to the growth and emergence of the formidable arts have also been assessed. The book seeks to survey the factors essential to the growth of the great arts as well as the factors that have retarded their continuity. Some of these arts obviously form part and parcel of the social institutions of the people mainly the Khasi and the Garo. The book, therefore, highlights the cultural grandeur of Meghalaya, one of the States in N. E. India. Moreover, the author has taken interest to elucidate the concept of art education as would be compatible to educational reconstruction as a whole. The concept of art criticism, creativity and inter-disciplinary approach has also been defined as would be more acceptable in the present context.

Dr. Hamlet Bareh, Professor and Head of Centre for Creative Arts, North-eastern Hill University, Shillong is a well known litterateur and educationalist of Meghalaya. To his manifold works on the various subjects concerning Meghalaya and the India's North-eastern region, this book, The Art History of Meghalaya is his latest contribution. It is anticipated that it will give a good coverage to the hitherto unexplored subject.

Hamlet Bareh is an outstanding educationist. He has conducted several integrated College and School Workshops for developing the standard of exposition and the art of expression among the students' community as developing the skills at interpretation or elucidation has, Dr. Bareh believes, its lasting effect in education.

Some of his works have found mention in the records of national and international value.

Art history of Meghalaya has been the outcome of my persistent efforts to investigate, compile and deduce some facets of its formation. Art history has been hitherto a neglected subject. Its essence in shaping the ancient civilisation has never been grasped fully. Whatever inferences made to the arts and crafts earlier, by few of the eminent ethnologists and anthropologists, these cannot form a subject of their own as should consistently suit with the need of Art history. Art history has involved a process of historiography not always analogous with the other types of historical frameworks. A tribal Art history offers a peculiar situation suited to the ages and chronological ascription of its own treated in a historical perspective. Art history and social history, however, can provide the common grounds of coincidence or a simultaneous formation of events. Art. therefore, offers a considerable scope for the expansion of historiography as a whole.

As regards Meghalaya, its political, social and economic history, an intensive information in these respects, can also be gained from the other sources listed in our bibliography. Art, reckoned as a consistent discipline connected with arts and crafts, other aesthetic and creative performances and expression, has occupied its foremost place in this work.

We have sought to deduce the essence of Art history from all the necessary angles. Arts, crafts and especially the historical relics spread out in the secluded hills and valleys have drawn our attention. The difficulty has arisen because the bulk of the antiquarian remains have nearly become defaced. Most of them have fallen to ruins. Some of the indigenous folk performing and plastic arts have become almost obsolete. Some of the vital art traditions have been forgotten. On these grounds, I have endeavoured to deciphering and deducing these arts as much possible as I could lay hands on, I have sought to capture the art symbols and project them as much correctly as possible. The essence of arts-plastic, traditional and modern has also been emphasised. The full picture of the art has indeed become formidable in a task of reconstruction.

The ten chapters assigned in this book have, therefore been devised to highlight the arts which reveal their typically ethnic and intrinsic character. The demarcation between the legendary and the historical formation and means of interdisciplinary approach if any, have to our best belief, been carefully analysed and evaluated. Art chronologically conforming to its age, is found to be vital in a process of historical reconstruction.

The work mostly was undertaken during my leisure time since, I have been involved actively also in performing my duties connected with art education and performances in the North Eastern Hill University. This volume is the outcome of field surveys and co-ordination of findings at the Museums and historical sites besides which, all the sources from the libraries and the views of our best informats on the multifarous aspects have been utilised. However, a more condensed bibliography has been attached so that scope is suitably thrown to curtail the unnecessary duplication of facts and provide room for a consistent, if not the very original dissertation, The task indeed has necessitated several stages of collation and evaluation with the frequent recasts attached thereto. At the final stage the big draft volume originally framed with its elongate chapters was needed to be compressed to reduce it to its final form, contained herein. Discovering the art symbols from the ancient historical relics especially lying in the more remote sites, is found to count immensely in a scheme of reconstruction. I feel it has been a pleasant task in this undertaking.

I commend it and crave the indulgence of readers in the event any drawbacks are found in this little volume.

HAMLET BAREH

Shillong