Page 274 - Eye of the beholder

The composition with its high drama, rich display of light and dark has resonance to Italian Baroque masters. Brown focuses on the foreground with the dramatic light that especially spotlights the two chief protagonists the sons of Tipu and Lord Cornwallis. The painting has a Neoclassical flavour, and in 18th century England, intimate knowledge of the history and culture of Classical Rome would have been the preserve of the intellectual elite, and this large work by Brown was to cater to the wider audience of the powers of the British in the colonized lands. The Neoclassical style places emphasizes on the heightened dramatic moment with dominant verticals of the standing group of figures as well as the flags which can be seen behind the group of Englishmen conveying a sense of excitement of the tragedy of the two children being given away.
In its compositional layout, Brown has created a vertical division with the English on one side and the army of Tipu on the other. The English obviously dominate on the right represented by the artist as a bigger group. The two shadowy figures on the left are making a desperate plea for the children to be left free. This exchange between Tipu and Cornwallis for the fulfillment of the treaty becomes in Brown’s painting a metaphor of defeat and triumph between the native and the colonizer respectively. Cornwallis’s shrewd tactic for the fulfillment of the treaty is a masterpiece not only aesthetically as an engaging painting but politically as a powerful tool of propaganda, dominantly inscribing the colonizers’ mindset of native conquests to fulfill their territorial expansionist ambitions.
The delineation of the figures has been rendered with precision and Brown has managed well the verity in the portraits of the general as well as the two princes. This dexterity of Brown was an integral dimension of his artistry and skill in capturing the likeness of the protagonists, having been a successful portrait painter. The left side of the composition shows greater restlessness amongst the figures, with gestures of pleas, helplessness particularly displayed in the hands of the Vakhil of Tipu who is shown seated on a high mound and sadness writ across his face. Behind him are three more courtiers, with anger evident in their eyes. Towards the upper right can be seen the cavaliers and the caparisoned elephants with their howdahs’.
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