Art and Life in Bangladesh

Art and Life in Bangladesh. Henry Glassie. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1997. 512 pp.

Henry Glassie's rhapsodic study is not so much an ethnography of arts in Bangladesh as a joyous celebration. Published on the 50th anniversary of subcontinental independence from the British Empire, the author's contemplative text adheres to the "Jay Bangla" ideology of Bangladesh's early phase after independence from Pakistan in 1971, a time when everyone hoped that the concept of a unified Bengali culture would prevail. He is a superb photographer. The book, replete with photographs, includes a glossary, discursive endnotes, a full bibliography, and an index.

Glassie devotes most of the book to potters, pottery, clay techniques, technology, and markets. Here is his strength. He has a discerning eye for nuance in relation to both artist and work, and his accounts of all the arts manufacturing processes he witnesses are scrupulous. In the clay worlds of Bangladesh he lovingly scrutinizes toys, utility vessels, obj ets d'art for the middle-class market, terra cotta narrative tiles made on big commissions, and various kinds of holy icons of both Hindus and Muslims. His sensitive interviews with favorite artists, such as the long meditation on murti sculptor Haripada Pal, allow us glimpses of their minds as they ponder their condition. In the last chapter a diverse array of other arts falls under his gaze-cane mats, a wooden ship, engraved brass, conch shell bangles, kantha quilts,jamdani brocaded muslin weaving, and ricksha arts. Here Glassie excels again with closely observed descriptions of techniques.

His determination to theorize, however, ends...