Indian Painting under British Imperialism

Under British Imperialism, painting in India took on many western characteristics throughout the 18th and 19th centuries.

Learning Objective

Discuss the effects the arrival of the British Empire had on Indian painting

Key Points

The establishment of the British Empire in the 18th century and the subsequent westernization of India paved the way for a radical change of artistic taste, and a new style of art and painting emerged.
In the 18th century, the merchants of the East India Company provided a large market for native art, and a distinct genre of watercolor painting developed known as the Company style.
The attitude in the mid-19th century was one of general British disregard for Indian art, followed by the establishment of British schools and the propagation of Western values in art education.
Raja Ravi Varma was among the first Indian painters to use Western techniques to illustrate Indian themes and traditions.
The Bengal School of Art arose in the early 20th century as an avant garde and nationalist movement reacting against the Western academic art styles; instead, it promoted a return to paintings such as the Mughal miniatures.

Terms

Company style
A hybrid Indo-European style of paintings made in India by Indian artists, many of whom worked for European patrons in the British East India Company or other foreign Companies in the 18th and 19th centuries.
East India Company
An English and later British joint-stock company, which was formed to pursue trade with the East Indies but ended up trading mainly with the Indian subcontinent and Qing China.

Full Text

Overview: British Imperialism and Art

British colonial rule had a great impact on Indian art. Old patrons of art became less wealthy and influential, and Western art more ubiquitous as the British Empire established schools of art in major cities, such as the Bombay Art Society in 1888. The Company style of paintings became common, created by Indian artists working for European patrons of the East India Company. The style was mainly Romanticized, with watercolor the primary medium used to convey soft textures and tones. By 1858, the British government took over the task of administration of India under the British Raj, and the fusion of Indian traditions with European style at this time is evident in a great deal of the artwork from this period.

Painting Under British Imperialism

The Company Style

In the 18th century, oil and easel painting brought many European artists to India in search of fame and fortune, including Thomas and William Daniel, Joshua Reynolds, George Chinnery, and others. The merchants of the East India Company provided a large market for native art in the 18th century, and a distinct genre of watercolor painting developed that depicted scenes of everyday life, regalia of princely courts, and Indian festivities and rituals. Referred to as the Company style or Patna style, this style of painting flourished at first in Murshidabad and spread to other cities of British India.

The Establishment of Art Schools

While the 18th century saw moderate British manifestations of Indian art, monuments, literature, and culture, the attitude in the mid-19th century shifted to one of disregard for Indian art. To propagate Western values in art education along with the colonial agenda, the British established art schools in Calcutta and Madras in 1854 and in Bombay in 1857. After 1857, John Griffith and John Lockwood Kipling came out to India together and headed the Sir JJ School of Art. Griffith was considered one of the finest Victorian painters to come to India, and Kipling went on to head the Mayo School of Arts in 1878.

Raja Ravi Varma

Raja Ravi Varma (1848–1906) was a remarkable self-taught Indian painter from the princely state of Travancore. He is considered the first of the modernists, and he advocated for the use of Western techniques to develop a new aesthetic in the subjective interpretation of Indian culture. His work was considered to be among the best examples of the fusion of Indian traditions with the techniques of European academic art, and it came to play an important role in the development of the Indian national consciousness.

Shakuntal by Ravi Varma

Ravi Varma's work, such as this painting, used Western composition, perspective, and realism to illustrate Indian themes.

The Bengal School

As more artists began using Western ideas of composition, perspective, and realism to illustrate Indian themes, others rebelled against these styles. The Bengal School of Art, commonly referred to as the Bengal School, arose in the early 20th century as an avant garde and nationalist movement reacting against the Western academic art styles previously promoted in India. Also known as "Indian style of painting" in its early days, it was led by Abanindranath Tagore (1871–1951) and supported by British art teacher E. B. Havell. Following the influence of Indian spiritual ideas in the West, Havell attempted to reform the teaching methods at the Calcutta School of Art by encouraging students to imitate Mughal miniatures. This caused controversy among some who considered it to be a retrogressive move; however, Havell and Tagore believed the technique to be expressive of India's distinct spiritual qualities, as opposed to the "materialism" of the West.

The best known painting by Tagore is Bharat Mata ("Mother India"), depicting a young woman with four arms in the manner of Hindu deities, holding objects symbolic of India's national aspirations. Other painters and artists of the Bengal school included Gaganendranath Tagore, Asit Kumar Haldar, M.A.R Chughtai, Sunayani Devi, Kshitindranath Majumdar, Nandalal Bose, Kalipada Ghoshal, Sughra Rababi, and Sudhir Khastgir. The Bengal school eventually paved the way for future modernist movements, and its influence declined in the 1920s.

Bharat Mata, a painting by Abanindranath Tagore

Bharat Mata by Abanindranath Tagore (1871–1951), a nephew of the poet Rabindranath Tagore and a pioneer of the movement that led to the Bengal School.

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