BN Goswamy is to Indian art history what Tendulkar is to its cricket pitches or SRK to its movies: a towering colossus who has transformed the nature of his chosen field, as well as being, at the same time, a much-loved and irreplaceable national treasure. The 81-year-old art historian combines in one elegant frame the eye of the aesthete, the discrimination of a connoisseur and the soul of a poet, with the rigorous mind of a scholar and the elegant prose of a gifted writer. His new book, The Spirit of Indian Painting, is the summation of a lifetime’s loving dedication to his subject. It may well be his most beautiful, and heartfelt work too.

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