Page 222 - Eye of the beholder

these pictures were examined on arrival. Pictures of Mysore were consequently in demand by families in England and sketches of several able amateurs were also published.
The drawings rendered by professional and amateur artists also contributed to knowledge. Of the men and woman who travelled to India, there was at least a small interested group, who were interested in acquiring rational knowledge and philosophy as well as the study of man. This had been an important and integral aspect of their liberal education. For the British, the late eighteenth and early nineteenth century was a period of intense intellectual enquiry. The boundaries of knowledge were being extended and educated men and women were endeavouring to grasp the complexity of man and nature. As the East India Company’s trade and power expanded in the second half of the eighteenth century, these varied intellectual interests and pursuits of knowledge were transferred to India. From about 1774, when Warren Hastings became the Governor-General, enthusiasm of this kind led to a great knowledge production in oriental studies. Scholars saw the potential and opportunities offered by the new field, and explored India and its culture. In 1784, Sir William Jones and few others founded the Asiatic Society in Calcutta, followed by Literary Societies in Madras and Bombay.
As part of this expanding curiosity, amateur painters and draftsmen strove to put their art to practical use. One subject was natural history, but equally fascinating were the manners, customs and dresses of Indian people. The British also witnessed people plying unusual and different trades and using unfamiliar tools. By engaging with these subjects the artists were attempting to unravel the complicated social structure and economy of India and their drawings marked the beginnings of Indian ethnography. Archaeology was another subject which aroused equal interest and enthusiasm, as India offered rich heritage particularly in terms of its historical monuments. By recording antiquities, these artists helped to distinguish the architecture of different religions and of different periods. By directing their skill into scholarly directions, British amateur artists helped to amass basic information of which later scholars were able to avail this visual knowledge.
Professionally trained European artists started to arrive in India in the latter half of the eighteenth century in search of commission and residencies, including Tilly Kettle (India 1769- 1776), John Zoffany (India 1783-89), William Hodge (India 1780-83), Thomas Danielle (India 1886-1893) and many others that practiced in the academic tradition. Among these, the majority were portraitists and enjoyed commissions by both the local and British patrons. They largely represented European officials in exotic Indian settings depicting them as permanent residents in India. The professional artists were concerned in creating paintings or prints for the sole purpose of marketing and generating profits. It is these artists who brought with them new styles and new conventions of painting. They began producing pictures which became widely popular in Europe and shaped Western perceptions of India as ‘Exotic Oriental’.
The infiltration of the European art tradition in India caused a wave of reactions in the Indian world of art and aesthetics, all varying in strength and nature. For Indian artists who were heir to several nonrealistic traditions, the assimilation of Western modernism was double-edged. On the one hand, it presented Indian artists with a way for claiming a modernist identity for themselves and, on the other, encouraged them to reconsider their own traditional antecedents.
As enlightened Indians in the nineteenth century began to accept the cultural hegemony of the West and viewed it as a means for self-improvement, Indian patrons began to lose faith
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