The Prince’s School of Traditional Arts

The Prince’s School of Traditional Arts was founded in 2004 by HRH The Prince of Wales. It developed from the Visual Islamic and Traditional Arts Programme (VITA) established at The Royal College of Art in 1984 by Professor Keith Critchlow.

The Prince’s School of Traditional Arts is one of the few places where research into the traditional arts as living, contemporary practices can be pursued. We recognise that for the artist, practice and research are inseparable: arts practice is research. Understanding and knowledge come through the experience of practice. Prompted by questions about techniques, materials, composition, contexts and interpretations, our artists/researchers use practice to explore, conceptualise and communicate what they come to understand and know. Reflecting on their own practice in our setting, they begin to recognise that their arts practice can be a research method, that it can be a way of thinking and knowing.

Departing from previous studies in the field, Dr Marin investigated Pahari painting as a living tradition through analysis of how it is presently understood, practiced, and transmitted. Focusing on 18th century Guler and Kangra idioms, an enquiry into the processes and practice of the artist was used to consider whether it is still possible to achieve the same quality of painting as evidenced in the historical examples. The research draws on extensive fieldwork and apprenticeship in studios of Himachal Pradesh and Rajasthan and records the knowledge of contemporary masters. Academic research into primary and secondary texts, including the Guler and Kangra paintings themselves, provided further insights.