Rajasthan Style review

India Belongs to the Ancient Orient of Our Soul

Assouline’s latest offering showcases this legendary region of India

Review by Andy Barnham

Rajasthan Style is the latest coffee table offering from publishers Assouline. Available this month, Laure Vernière introduces and sets the tone for photography by Anne Garde who focuses her lens on the style epitomised in the people, nature and places around Rajasthan. Magnificently moustached men are portrayed proudly next to stunning architecture and scenery showing the reader both how simple life can be in one breath and how grand and ornate in the next with a passing nod to the region’s colonial and military history.

Large and reassuringly heavy, this tome provides a delightful view into contemporary Rajasthan and how history sits along side 20th Century life; a photo of an elephant being led to a temple, next to a deliveryman pulling a trailer of parcels being overtaken by an old fashioned three wheeled tuk- tuk is a perfect example. Elsewhere signs for internet, email facilities and ‘cyber dream’ are painted next to a traditional style depiction of a woman carrying a water jug on her head followed by an elephant.

On the whole, the subjects are well served by the photography, though there is the odd shot which is strangely out of focus and more than one double page spread looses it’s impact with the point of focus hidden in the page fold. Critique about photographic perfection aside it is a fascinating view into the Jewel of the Empire.

Enquiries: Assouline, Maison Assouline, 196A Piccadilly, London, W1J 9EY/ www.assouline.com