he Later is an impressive historical and cultural investigation of contemporary art in Pakistan.

Populated with images of artworks in eight essays and an artist in conversation, the volume analyses the impact on art of the events of the last four centuries of the Subcontinent`s complex sociological, geopolitical, economic, technological and visual dis/ placement.

The Preface by Furqaan Ahmed outlines the four timelines `The Before` and `The Disruption` pertain to the era prior to the arrival of the East India Company and the subsequent establishment of the British Empire, whilst `The After` and `The Later` focus on the after-effects and the construction of the visual vocabulary post1947. Often, the text and images disclose an intertwining of the past and present, the sacred and secular.

The book comprises two halves, the first traverses the interaction between the colonial histories and legacies and Pakistani contemporary art; the latter explores the response, an interrogation of colonial influence, by Pakistani artists through their creative practice.

The first section includes Professor Salima Hashmi`s essay on Modernism and a conversation with artist Zahoor ulAkhlag, followed by Dr Shabnam Khan`s research on textiles and Dr Samina Iqbal`s analysis of miniature painting.

`Pathways to Modernism by Hashmi is a riveting essay, tracing the arc of modernism, primarily the shift from the royal court `karkhanas` to the art schools established by the British, specifically the School of Industrial Art, Calcutta (1854) and the Mayo School of Art, Lahore (1876).

A chronological perspective reveals a radical rupture: the disconnect experienced by the celebrated Indian artists from their own indigenous yet culturally inclusive practices to the subservience of `being trained in an alien tradition` European `values` as observed by John Lockwood Kipling, who later served as the principal of the Mayo School. The ongoing, ever-present hierarchies between `art` and `craft`, `high` and `low art` enter the visual and cultural landscape.

Hashmi underscores the popular appeal of Raja Ravi Varma, Ustad Allah Bukhsh and Abdur Rehman Chughtai, who responded to the challenges of modernity by developing a vernacular style rooted in Indian mythology and folktales, disseminated to the masses through oleographs and lithographs.

In contrast, the embrace of Modernismin the decades prior toIndependence (when Modern art flourished in the West) by artists Jamini Roy, Amrita Sher-Gil and Zubeida Agha transitioned to the abstract. The disruption of Partition propelled the artist community, both writers and artists, to seek intellectual refuge in the Pak Tea House and Coffee House in Lahore.

Additionally, the return of Shakir Ali from Europe in the 1950s transformed the `culturally, socially and intellectually sterile` atmosphere of the Mayo School of Art (MSA), consolidating the pathway to Modernism in Lahore. The evolution of MSA into the National College of Arts in 1958, with Ali serving as the first principal from Pakistan (1961-73), greatly encouraged contemporary artists, significantly Zahoor ul Akhlag.

`The Painter Speaks A Conversation between Salima Hashmi and Zahoor ul Akhlaq`, an interview conducted in1990, offers a rare insight into Akhlaq`s pluralistic artwork and philosophy, drawing from both Eastern and Western traditions. Akhlaq revisited history, specifically Mughal manuscripts before the enforced severance of local tradition, expressing his desire to `develop our visual sensibilities, because our temperament owes a lot to our past, which remains with us.

`Textiles: Ta`wil of Their Times` by Dr Shabnam Khan is a thorough investigation into the destruction of the Indian textile cottage industries the tactic employed by the East India Company to carve out the British Raj. Systematically the Indian handmade textile industry was replaced by British machinemade fabric, which was cheaper, in cost and quality. Thus, over a period of two centuries, the largest Indian textile cotton industry was converted into aconsumer, the exporters to the world relegated to importers.

Khan`s pièce de résistance, demonstrating the distance travelled, is conveyed in two paintings, `Thomas Roe at the Mughal Court, 1694` and `Mughal Emperor Shah Alam Conveying the Grant of the Diwani to Lord Clive, 1765.` However, there is a twist in the tale of textile: the author highlights the role of khaadi as `the fabric of Indian independence` spearheaded by Gandhi.

`The Dialogue between Tradition and Modernity in Contemporary Pakistani Miniature Painting` by Dr Samina Iqbal traces the metamorphoses of miniature painting from Mughal to contemporary times.

Firstly, Iqbal delineates that Western scholars/travellers suffered from a knowledge andcontextual gap, with added sensationalism leading to further misinterpretation of Indian art embedded in indigenous religious practices, `more devils than deities.

Iqbal proceeds to discuss 18th century `miniature painting` in the Mughal Tasvir Khana a fusion of Indian, Persian and Western painting traditions in the illuminated manuscripts.

The end of the Mughal Empire brought new rulers, establishing new rules catering to the tastes of the Raj, which adversely affected the lives and livelihoods of local artists and artisans. Despite this, miniature painting continued to be taught as a `craft` at the MSA/NCA by Ustad Haji Sharif, Sheikh Shujaullah and, later, his protégé Bashir Ahmad.

Ahmad taught Shahzia Sikander, who won international acclaim for challenging the medium`s technical and aesthetic framework. The 1990s/2000s saw the birth and rise of the neominiaturists, both locally and internationally. This exceptional essay also offers a critique of the validation of neo-miniaturists by the West, the trend of studying miniature keeping an `exotic` tradition alive, which also constitutes high economic transaction.

The second part of the book is visually heavier, dedicated to contemporary Pakistani artworks from the 21st century responding to the colonial era Quddus Mirza looking closely at emerging themes in the artworks, Virginia Whiles narrowing in on carpets as canvas, David Chalmers Alesworth`s self-reflection on embroidering gardens on carpets and Furqaan Ahmed speculating on the moving image to view the post-colonial. `Contemporary Colonies` by Mirza weighs in on the European coloniser (equated to the colour white/gora) being unable to comprehend the colours, vibrancy and ornamentation of the Subcontinent. The coloniser declared local arts and literature as inferior and this was challenged effectively postIndependence by artists and writers. In this critical study, Mirza contends that, while the region shared colonialism, each society/state responded to it uniquely.

In Pakistani contemporary art, the collision of violence and ornamentation the ugly and beautiful appears to be a recurring motif. Mirza also identifies the carpet and quilts intersecting with cartography employed by contemporary artists, to dissect the postcolonial. He observes the appropriation and subversion of foreign costumes in certain artworks and also comments on the tenuous demarcation between local and global art.

In `Textile Interventions on Carpets`, Whiles focuses on the artist/ gardener British-Pakistani Alesworth`s embroidery over `garden paradise` carpets. Curiously, he layers maps of British gardens, such as Lawrence Garden and Hyde Park, over a Persian carpet a Western imposition over an Easternantique? However,inhis `Artist`s Notes on Lawrence Garden (Bagh-iJinnah) 2014`, Alesworth reflects that this visual dialogue emphasises `the centrality of the garden in Abrahamicreligions but also about differing world views and other cultural crossings.

`Post-Production: The Post Colony, New Media Art, and Fanon` by Ahmed contemplates on the removal of the coloniser but not colonisation itself.

The theme of violence and exploitation returns in the video art under discussion with land mafia, war and unchecked capitalism ensuring a perpetual state of poverty for the masses, with true independence remaining a far-fetched dream. The `Afterword` provides an astute conclusion by Simone Wille.

This absorbing volume delves into the deposition of Subcontinental artists from the karkhana to the factory, patronage to enslavement, freedom to subjugation of aesthetic expression, self confidence to an inferiority complex, and from a sense of community to grappling with individualism during the colonial era. Independence was a tremendous upheaval and the decades since have been equally challenging.

The content of the included artwork mirrors the prevailing circumstances.

This endeavour highlights the need for further art documentation the then and now leading the discussion for `The Later`, illustrating a way forward for us.

The reviewer is a communication designer and director of the interdisciplinary collective Numaish-Karachi. Insta: @numaishkhi