YOGA'S ART

Debra Diamond, ed., with contributions by David Gordon White . . .  et. al., Yoga: The Art of Transformation (Washington, D.C.: Arthur M. Sackler Gallery, Smithsonian Institution, 2013) (From the bookjacket: "Many of us today practice yoga for spiritual insight and better health, but few know of yoga's extraordinary visual history. Yoga: The Art of Transformation, the first publication of its kind, invites readers to explore 3,000 years of yoga's visual record, from depictions of beneficent deities and Tantric yogini goddesses to militant ascetics and romantic heroes. Beautiful works of art--including temple sculptures, masterpieces of Mughal painting, and the first illustrated asana treatise--depict the aesthetic aspects of a practice that has transformed over time and across communities. While many objects emerged out of Hindu contexts or depict Hindu practitioners, others reveal that yoga was never the domain of any single religion, and indeed yogic identity crosses 'sacred' and 'secular' boundaries. Photographs, postcards, early films, and other materials shed light on the enormous shifts in yoga's reception in the nineteenth century, as well as on the creation of modern yoga.").