Eclecticism and Empire, in Translation

This essay focuses on the term eclecticism and parallel words for mixture in South Asia. There are many contemporary words to theorize artistic mixture, from those that are trained on how different elements mix—including bricolage, assemblage, and pastiche—to those like hybridity, mestizaje, and creolization, which powerfully address cultural mixture within the asymmetrical power dynamics of colonialism. Here I consider what eclecticism might add to the theorization of mixed arts and propose a process of translation to reimagine foundational European terms in art history. To do so, I attend to eclecticism’s history in Europe and at the Maratha court in western India, align it with other terms for artistic selection and fusion in South Asia—such as the process of “patching” arts together in an album, or muraqqaʿ—and contend with eclecticism’s relationship to empire.