Page 240 - Eye of the beholder

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Thomas Daniell worked within the convention of the classical ideal landscape, employing a style of cool, limpid realism to endow his scenes with calm majesty, serenity and order. But the arresting dimension of his works was the subject matter. Searching always for the Sublime and the Beautiful, the Daniells generally portrayed grandiose views carefully framed with palm and banyan trees, and, on at least one occasion, enhanced the beauty of a scene with the addition of a temple. The Daniells composed their Indian landscapes to render the places they saw in India as literally and accurately as possible.
Part of the lure of India was its strangeness; and a fascination with the exotic part of the picturesque repertoire. Yet the treatment of Indian subjects in a picturesque manner was tempered, rather than exaggerating exoticism, making them conform to a set of values derived from European art. While Hodges architectural forms had been an intellectual pursuit, for the Daniells’ buildings were picturesque antiquities and were responsible about the information on Indian architectural forms and the subsequent incorporation of new elements into British architecture. While Hodges had a personal view of India, the Daniells’ emphasized the grandeur, the nobility and its majesty.
The Daniells’ were in South Africa before their journey to India. In short, the picturesque was not simply an aesthetic that was carried from the English Lake District to Table Bay and the Ganges River, but developed through contact with non-English regions, and moved throughout the British Empire without, at times, tempering the exotic, providing a measure of familiarity for would-be travelers. Daniells’ work contributed greatly to creating the image of British India as a rich land of romantic glory; giving the people of Britain their first accurate look at the exotic sub-continent. Their great achievement lies in satisfying the European craving for the picturesque while remaining responsible and accurate to their subjects.
According to Anirban Sadhu “I had started getting interested in the work of the Daniells almost from the same time I started developing an interest in art history. This was way before I had the means of buying any art of any sort. In those days, I used to be a student of Molecular Biology at the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research in Mumbai. The TIFR was known for its vast and impressive collection of post-independence modern Indian art. The founding director of TIFR, Dr. Homi J Bhabha, under the patronage of Jawaharlal Nehru had created a substantial collection of the best contemporary works from the 1950s to the 1970s. Paintings by Ara, Mehta, Gade and Husain lined the walls of the corridors of the Institution, at a time when few were aware about modern Indian artists and their works, and these artists had not yet started commanding the prices that they would in the coming decades. Among these paintings was the biggest ever Husain that I have seen till date. This was a huge painting 20’ in length completely dominating the entire length of the corridor of the mezzanine floor, leading to the central library. There were few amongst us who had an interest in other disciplines beyond the narrow confines of our own research and that was modern art, which was the only visuality for us. Nor were any useful books available readily in those days to educate one about arts. Sadly, the situation hasn’t changed much for the better twenty years on”.