Colonial rule introduced
several new art forms, styles, materials and techniques which were creatively
adapted by Indian artists for local patrons and markets, in both elite and and
popular circles.
The changes were seen
primarily on paintings and print making.
New Forms of Imperial Art:
(i) In 18th century a
stream of European artists came to India along with the British traders and
rulers.
(ii) The artists brought
with them new styles and new conventions of paintings. They began producing
pictures which helped shape western perceptions of India.
(iii) The main feature
of the European painting was realism, i.e., what the artists produced was
expected to look real.
(iv) Oil painting was
also introduced in India by the European artists. It enabled artists to produce
images that looked real.
(v) Paintings were based
on varied subjects. However, the European artist's common intention was to
emphasise the superiority of Britain, its culture, its people and its power.
Looking for the Picturesque:
Picturesque is an aesthetic ideal introduced into
English cultural debate in 1782 by William Gilpin. The term “picturesque” needs
to be understood in relationship to two other aesthetic ideals: the beautiful
and the sublime
(i) Picturesque
landscape painting was one of the
popular imperial traditions. It depicted India as quaint land, to be explored
by travelling British artists.
(ii) The most famous
artists of this tradition were Thomas Daniell and his nephew William Daniell.
(iii) They produced
paintings of newly acquired British territories.
(iv) In some of the
images they showed the British rule bringing modern civilization to India. In
other images, depicting buildings reminding the glory of past and decaying
ancient civilization.
(v) One of the image
shows the modernizing influence of British rule, by emphasizing a picture of
dramatic change.
Portraits of Authority:
(i) Portrait painting
was another tradition of art that became popular in colonial India.
(ii) The rich and
powerful people, both Indian and British, were very fond of self portraits.
(iii) In colonial India,
portraits were life size images that looked lifelike and real.
(iv) The art of making
portraits is known as ‘portraiture’ that
served as an ideal means of displaying the lavish lifestyles, wealth and status
generated by British in India.
(v) European artists
like Johann Zoffany visited India in search of profitable commissions.
(vi) He was born in
Germany, migrated to England and came in India and stayed for five years.
(vii) He depicted the
British as superior and imperious, flaunting their clothes, standing royally or
sitting arrogantly and living a life of luxury while Indians were portrayed as
submissive and inferior serving their white masters and occupying a shadowy
background in his paintings.
(viii) Many Indian
Nawabs got their portraits painted by European painters.
(ix) Nawab Muhammad Ali
Khan of Arcot commissioned two European artists- Tilly Kettle and George
Willison to paint his portraits and gifted these paintings to the king of
England and the Directors of East India Company.
Painting History:
' History painting' refers to any picture
with a high-minded or heroic narrative.
(i) It was a
third category of imperial art. These paintings dramatized and recreated
various episodes of British imperial history and enjoyed prestige and became
very popular in the late 18th and early 19th century.
(ii) British victories
in India served as rich material for history painters in Britain.
(iii) They painted the
various wars, in which the colonial rule had defeated the Indians and British
were celebrating their power, their victories and their supremacy.
(iv) The first painting
of history was produced by Francis Hayman in 1762, when the British defeated
the Indian army of Nawab Sirajuddaula in the Battle of Plassey and installed
Mir Jafar as the Nawab of Murshidabad. The painting shows Mir Jafar welcoming
Lord Clive.
(v) Robert Kerr Porter,
painted the defeat of Tipu Sultan of Mysore in 1799 at the famous battle of
Seringapatam. It is a painting full of action and energy, the paintng
dramatizes the event and glorified the British triumph.
(vi) Imperial history
paintings sought to create a public memory of imperial triumph to show that the
British were invisible and all powerful.
What Happened to the Court Artists:
(i) There were different
Indian traditions of Art in different courts. Some of them are as follows-
- In Mysore, Tipu Sultan resisted the European art and
continued to encourage his tradition of mural paintings.
- The court of Murshidabad had different trend. The
British had successfully installed their puppet Nawabs on the throne;
first Mir Zafar and then Mir Qasim after defeating Sirajuddaulah. The
Nawab encouraged local miniature artists to absorb the tastes and artists
style of British.
- The local artists of Murshidabad began to adopt the
elements of European realism. They used perspective, i.e., style of
painting which creates a sense of distance between objects that are near
and those at a distance. They used various shades to make the figures
realistic.
(ii) Local painters
produced a vast number of images of local plants and animals, historical
buildings and monuments, festivals, etc. and these pictures were collected by
the East India Company officials and known as Company paintings.
The New Popular Indian Art:
(i) A new world of
popular art developed in 19th century in many of the cities of India.
(ii) Scroll painting; paintings on a long roll
of paper that could be rolled up, was developed by local villagers called ‘patuas’ and ‘potters’.
(iii) Kalighat in Bengal
was expanding as a commercial and administrative centre.
(iv) Mythological themes
were the main art forms for the scroll painters producing images of gods and
goddesses.
(v) Traditionally,
figures in scroll paintings looked flat, not rounded.
(vi) Kalighat painters
began to use shading to give them a rounded form, to make images look three
dimensional but were not realistic and lifelike.
(vii) Early Kalighat
paintings use a bold deliberately non-realistic style depicting large and
powerful figures with a minimum of lines, detail and colours.
(viii) Many of the
Kalighat pictures were printed in large numbers and sold in the market and the
images were engraved in wooden blocks.
(ix) In late 19th
century, mechanical printing presses were set up in different parts of India,
which helped in producing larger number of printings.
(x) Calcutta Art Studio
was set up in late 19th century in Calcutta and produced lifelike images of
eminent Bengali personalities as well as mythological pictures.
(xi) With the spread of
nationalism in the early 20th century, the studio produced popular prints with
elements of nationalism. Some of them have Bharat Mata appearing as a goddess
carrying the national flag or nationalist heroes sacrificing their head to
Bharat Mata.
The Search for a National Art:
(i) The impact of
religions, culture and the spirit of nationalism on art was strongly visible by
the end of the 19th century.
(ii) Many painters tried
to develop a style that could be considered both modern and Indian.
The Art of Raja Ravi Varma:
(i) Raja Ravi Varma was
one of the first artists who tried to intermingle modern and national style.
(ii) Raja Ravi Varma
belonged to the family of the Maharaja of Travancore in Kerala.
(iii) He mastered the
Western art of oil painting and realistic life study but painted themes from
Indian mythology.
(iv) He mainly painted
scenes from the Ramayana and the Mahabharata.
(v) Raja Ravi Varma set
up a picture production team and printing press on the outskirts of Bombay.
A Different Vision of National Art:
(i) A new group of
nationalist artists in Bengal gathered around Abanindranath Tagore, the nephew
of Rabindranath Tagore.
(ii) They opposed the
art of Ravi Varma as imitative of western style and declared that western and
modern art could not be used to depict the nation’s ancient myths and legends.
(iii) He wanted to
revive and turned for inspiration to medieval Indian traditions of miniature
painting and the ancient art of mural paintings in the Ajanta Caves.
(iv) He received
inspiration from Rajput style of paintings.
(v) His art was
influenced by the Japanese paintings that can be seen in some of the paintings.
No comments:
Post a Comment