Marg — India's oldest art journal launches its digital archive

"...we hope that all the problems of beauty in construction, design, function and human value will be posed in MARG and we trust that this magazine will become a breviary of architecture and art for all enlightened citizens of our country and abroad, an index to the growth and development of our new renascent civilisation."

This excerpt is from the four-page-long editorial of the very first issue of the Marg magazine (October 1946) titled, Planning and Dreaming, written by founder, the late Mulk Raj Anand. While the Padma Bhushan recipient hoped with fervour that the art magazine formed part of the nation-building exercise to promote and document all forms of art traditions across India, he also wished for the "general character of our magazine [Marg] will be a humanist one" .

And his prophecy continues to ring true, as 71 years later, since the start of 2018, the above article, along with other scholarly essays from all 270 editions of what is India's oldest art journal, are now downloadable for a fee (Rs 175/$5 per issue and Rs 75/$2 per article). In a bid to welcome new tech-savvy audiences and old patrons of scholars, students, artists, designers, and connoisseurs of art, who'd often find it difficult to locate rare issues of Marg owing to its limited print-run, The Marg Foundation, has finally digitised all its magazine issues from Volume I to the current, Volume 69, which are now available on www.marg-art.org. One can also digitally subscribe future issues. ​

Today, Marg books and magazines continue to offer pioneering research by scholars across the globe about Indian traditional, modern and contemporary sculpture, painting, architecture, design, performing arts, photography, cinema, even tapping into the vernacular representations. These publications are further enhanced by a rich reservoir of photographic archives, sourced from libraries, museums, private collections and individuals across the globe. For instance, Bharata Natyam (Vol. 10, No. 4, December 1957) pioneered extensively research the spiritual and technical connotations of this dance form, and profile classical danseuses​ like Rukmini Devi, Chandralekha, Mrinalini and Sarabhai; Bangla Desh Heritage (Vol. 27, No. 2, March 1974) celebrated the recent birth of this nation with unknown facets like the roof of a peasant hut inspiring the design of Shah Jahan’s throne; Homage to Hampi (Vol. 33, No. 4, December 1981) was one of the first publications to highlight the ruins of the Vijayanagara empire internationally through 113 photographs and 17 maps; and Documentary Films of India (Vol. 13, No. 3, October 1960) explored this genre of filmmaking profiling visionary filmmakers like Jean Bhownagary, John Grierson and James Beveridge, and a digest of documentary films produced in India between 1946-1960.

What serves as an adequate teaser to the new reader of Marg are five free articles by its previous editors — scholars Mulk Raj Anand, Saryu Doshi, Pratapaditya Pal, Vidya Dehejia — and current co-editor Jyotindra Jain — on subjects that lie under their expertise. One can also peek inside each magazine issue by clicking on the cover of the said issue. The PDF version of especially old issues, unites pages of articles that in the print version were interrupted, as one run-on piece. Additionally, it includes the bibliography of the said piece as well as cartographic prints on trademark butter paper sort-of inserts. 

Digitised by the web development company Live Pages and funded by the Tata Trusts, it took the foundation almost two years to digitise over 30,000 pages. "The issues are very valuable, and their subsidised online rates will interest a large audience. We will keep digitising every new issue as well", says Radhika Sabavala, General Manager, at the Marg Foundation, located at the heritage prescient, the Army & Navy building, in the heart of Mumbai's art district, Kala Ghoda. At the waiting area, you will mostly spot students, scholars and tourists who stroll in after noticing the artistic covers of its journals at the ground-floor window display, browsing the publications, sometimes for over an hour. 

Jyotindra Jain, an Indian art historian and museologist, who is also the co-editor of Marg, says “As Marg goes digital, it will serve as a reference pool and historiography of Indian art writing over a century.” His co-editor, curator and ​and professor at the School of Arts and Aesthetics at Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) ​Naman Ahuja, also feels that "Marg’s rich photographic archives along with the pioneering interpretations of art traditions and practices, will enter new discussion forums and open vistas anew for showcasing changing analysis.” 

Marg is a tale of an age-old institution adapting to the times and is quite active on Facebook and Instagram, and a user-friendly website. Here's hoping that Marg manages to digitise its books in the near future.