How art has evolved with faith in the Indian religious context?
Through the discovery of many caves and rock paintings, the earliest art in the form of rock paintings, found in the Indian subcontinent, like in Bhimbetka, date back too more than 30,000 years. It can be labeled as prehistoric art.
Source: own
If we wish to look closer to the ancient period, then the Indus valley civilization and it's various artefacts present to us 5000 year old cultural history. Though the Indus valley script has not been deciphered yet, it is nowhere close to the later period Hindu and Buddhist period art and script.
Source: Wikipedia, National Museum New Delhi
So, as we close in on more recent art, meaning around 1000 BC and later, we find that art in the form of sculpture and or painting, most often is preserved in the context of faith and religion.
We may look the 2000 year old rock paintings of Ajanta caves depicting Buddha's life and rock sculptures of later times. Through the initial centuries of the 1st millennium AD, one can see Hindu art forms taking a cue from the waning Buddhist culture in the Indian subcontinent.
Temple architecture stated being adorned with some breathtaking sculptural art forms.
A painted mural scene from the 'Mahajanaka Jataka' in Ajanta's cave 1, showing King Janaka and his wife Sivali. Source: The Mint publication 12 Mar 2023
The sculptural figurines of Buddhist and early Hindu temple art depicted the human form of the deities and celestial figures like nymphs, yakshas etc. in very celebratory nude and semi-nude forms. Perhaps giving us a glimpse of the cultural richness of those times. Temple after temple, century after century, Hindu art started evolving in its beauty, scale and sophistry. Hundreds of well maintained temples surviving from the ancient to the medieval periods, show us that the gods, deities, nymphs, yakshas and other such celestial figures were boldy depicted in their nude and semi-nude poses adorned by fine jewelleries and hairdos.
Source: wikimedia.org photo by Dinesh Kanambadi
Then came the medieval period and with the advent of Islamic invasions, the subcontinent went through a cultural upheaval. Initially, a period of instability gripped parts of the subcontinent, until the Mughal Empire finally held sway over the entire region before the East India Company arrived and slowly made inroads through means of business and trade.
The period from the 12th century to the 18th century was probably defining not only the cultural landscape of the country but also the art and architecture at the same time.
The 19th century saw the rise of one of India's iconic painters in Raja Ravi Verma, who fused European academic art with Indian sensibilities of his time. He reimagined Indian deities in a completely new light using the new found medium of oil on canvas. His representation of Hindu characters became so popular that it formed an inseparable part of the Indian imagination of the epics, the Ramayana and the Mahabharata. He modeled his subject female deities in a very puritanical clothed form as against the temple sculptures of the yore.
Source: The Ganesh Shivaswamy Foundation
Ravi Verma's women (deities and characters from popular puranas, mythical stories) be it goddess Lakshmi or Saraswati or for that matter Damayanti from the Puranas forming the backstory of Mahabharata, all are shown to be epitomes in female beauty albeit well-clothed and chaste looking. This depiction of chastity implied literally through fully clothed female hevenly figures laid the foundation for popular imagination of the Hindu populace of his times and those to follow in the next two centuries till date. He left an indelible imprint on the minds of Hindu conservatives about what a chaste woman was like and should be like culturally. Ravi Verma's paintings of gods and goddesses slowly became the default calendar art through the ages and today that calendar art has become the authoritative representation of Hindu deities.
Source: Lakshmi Vinolia soap calendar Art Print
When students of art compare the evolution of art depicting Hindu religious deities, in other words 'art of the Hindu faith', they will discover that the conservativist has held sway as we approach the current century. This development was solely responsible to shape the moral and religious compass of the Hindu society of the 19th to current century.
Source: RRVpress Oleographs, rajaravivarma.net
The past couple of decades of ultra conservatism have seen Hindu art reduced to simplistic iconography. Art that can be easily replicated through computer prints and cutouts that can be pasted on the rear windshields of cars and flags depicting the Hindu identity. Two most glaring representations are of Lord Ram and his favourite devotee, a god in himself- Hanuman, the Monkey God.
The most commonly depicted calendar art of Ram is always with his younger brother Laxman on one side, wife Sita on the other and Hanuman at his feet (see figure above).
The benevolent smile on Lord Ram's face has now been replaced by a warrior pose. His standing pose giving blessings to his devotees has been replaced by an airborne pose wielding a menacing arrow at an imaginary enemy, depicted by the evil Ravana.
Source: Dreamstime stock photos
So also, with Hanuman. From a benevolent monkey god who was always represented with folded hands or with an open chest showing the images of Ram inside him, Hanuman is now being increasingly depicted as the angry God capable of destroying the enemy.
Source: ISCON educational services
His eternal benevolent smile is now replaced by an eternal angry face that is seen plastered on the rear windshields of cars displaying the religious identity of its owner.
Source: Amazon.in
This essay tries to trace the evolution of art through the lens of a layman and not from an expert on history, Hinduism or iconography.
The evolution of iconography and art in the context of faith is very interesting. Especially the final part of your essay, and I do wonder why this change took place so drastically. Does it have something to do with the commercialisation of religion?