divimg alt="" src="http://hits.guardian.co.uk/b/ss/guardiangu-feeds/1/H.15.1/46008?ns=guardianpageName=Art+and+design%3A+British+Museum+breaks+up+midwinter+gloom+to+forecast+an+Indian+summerch=Art+and+designc3=The+Guardianc4=Museums+%28Art+and+design%29%2CExhibitions%2CArt+%28visual+arts+only%29%2CArt+and+design%2CCulture+section%2CUK+newsc5=Art%2CNot+commercially+usefulc6=Maev+Kennedyc7=2008_12_05c8=1129178c9=articlec10=GUc11=Art+and+designc12=Museumsc13=c14=h2=GU%2FArt+and+design%2FMuseums" width="1" height="1" //divpIn the bleak midwinter, the British Museum yesterday announced a blaze of colour and perfume to come: an Indian garden blooming in paint on its exhibition walls, and in reality in a scented garden around a fountain and lotus pool which will be created in its rather grim Bloomsbury forecourt./pp"In some magical way I can't quite get my head around, the garden will also cover a geographical spread from the foothills of the Himalayas to the lushness of the rainforest," curator Richard Blurton promised./ppThe task of creating the perfumed garden in the pigeon-haunted surroundings of the museum's front doorstep, plagued by the eternal reek of frying onions from the burger stalls outside the gate, falls to the Royal Botanic Gardens at Kew, which will be celebrating its own 250th anniversary./ppBlurton has to concentrate on getting onto the gallery walls sequences of ravishing paintings from the Jodhpur court, never seen before in the west, ranging from scenes of luxurious opulent life in the palaces, to a mystical series created for a 19th-century ruler who turned over political power to an ascetic sect. /ppBlurton calls the pieces "a voyage from mundane certainty to supra-mundane speculation"./ppAs well as a haven for stressed city dwellers and visitors, the garden will highlight the use of plants in Indian food and medicine - such staples as chili, aubergine and tomatoes are all New World imports - and the perils of habitat and species loss from development pressures and deforestation of the subcontinent./ppThe exhibition, and the films, plays, music recitals, food tastings and other events being organised around it, will also flag up the importance of Blurton's own little kingdom, a department which is one of the richer but less known in the museum./ppAlthough the Indian sculpture gallery is one of the largest in the building, many visitors never reach it. "The trouble is we are right at the back of the building, and I think a lot of visitors have lost the will to live before they get to us," he said yesterday. "But the collection is probably the most important outside India, and in its range and variety, from the Old Stone Age to the present day, probably the greatest under one roof in the world."/ppThe paintings, all created by court artists for three generations of 18th and 19th-century rulers of Jodhpur, are the first major loan exhibition to come to Bloomsbury directly from India./ppAlthough fabulous jewel-like miniatures are the most famous Indian royal paintings, some of the Jodhpur pieces are over a metre wide. Blurton said it is still not clear how they were displayed - whether they were hung on a wall like western art, or held up one at a time to delight a lounging maharajah and his intimates./ppThe most intriguing are the 19th-century mystical works made for Man Singh. "It is clear that these are internal landscapes, using blocks of intense colour in reflections on the experience of meditation and spiritual thought," Blurton said. "The use of pulsating brilliant colour recalls the Rothko chapel - but much of their meaning is still hidden from us."/ppThe Indian garden will feature scented plants, including frangipane, sandalwood and jasmine. "Very heavily scented jasmine," Blurton, who is also worried about the frying onions, said./ppIt will replace a Chinese garden, also created by Kew, installed to coincide with the terracotta warriors exhibition, one of the most successful in the museum's history./ppThe 55 paintings will come from the Mehrangarh museum in Jodhpur, Rajasthan, which was established by the present maharajah, H H Gaj Singh II. More paintings are coming from the National Museum of India in Delhi, and from the British Museum's own collection./ppNeil MacGregor, director of the museum, said: "There is an enduring fascination with the rich diversity of the art and culture of India. Garden and Cosmos epitomises this diversity through the polarities expressed in the paintings, focusing on both the external courtly life of pleasure on the one hand, and an internal life of devotion and speculation on the other." /pp· Garden and Cosmos: the Royal Paintings of Jodhpur, at the British Museum, May 28 to August 23. India Landscape, May 2 to September 28, British Museum forecourt, free./ph2Culture of import/h2pstrongAt the British Museum this summer:/strong/pp· Bollywood film seasonbr /A first for the museum/pp· Indian Summer Latebr /Night of Indian performance, dance, music, and food/pp· Lunchtime lecturesbr /In the new garden, by museum curators and Kew gardeners, on Indian medicinal plants, horticulture, landscapes and ecology/pp· Painting and printing workshopsbr /Recreating traditional Indian craft techniques/pdiv style="float: left; margin-right: 10px; margin-bottom: 10px;"ullia href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/artanddesign/museums"Museums/a/lilia href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/artanddesign/exhibition"Exhibitions/a/lilia href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/artanddesign/art"Art/a/li/ul/diva href="http://www.guardian.co.uk"guardian.co.uk/a copy; Guardian News Media Limited 2008 | Use of this content is subject to our a href="http://users.guardian.co.uk/help/article/0,,933909,00.html"Terms Conditions/a | a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/webfeeds/1,,1309488,00.html"More Feeds/a pa href="http://feedads.googleadservices.com/~at/iSpmiRbOHHcAu3owARuMtMiwna0/a"img src="http://feedads.googleadservices.com/~at/iSpmiRbOHHcAu3owARuMtMiwna0/i" border="0" ismap="true"/img/a/p