Romance of Red Stone: An Appreciation of Ornament on Islamic Architecture in India (with Yashwant Pitkar)

Text by Mustansir Dalvi
Images by Yashwant Pitkar

The Romance of Red Stone is an appreciation of architecture of Islam in India. Indo-Islamic architecture is characterized by the prolific use of sandstone – red stone. It is the culmination of the long tradition of Islamic art that came into bloom right from the faith’s first expansion beyond the Arabian Peninsula in the late seventh century. All the great Mughal emperors were prolific commissioners of monuments, and their architecture thus remained the finest representation of this syncretism. Mughal architecture has been rich in ornament, almost at times overwhelming the architecture itself.