Page 279 - Eye of the beholder

using various mediums such as oil, water and pencil. His clear focus was the architecture. Furthermore, these studies were refined in his studio and human figures were added. Such practice was a common approach for travelling artists. This technique helped Weeks to experiment with his aesthetical approach to satisfy his imagination and romantic desire. Thus, Weeks created several versions of the same place from preparatory stages to the final image.
The oil painting is impressionistic in character and displays a style that is distinctly different from many of the professional European artists who had worked in India as William Hodges, Tilly Kettle, the Daniells’ et al. It displays a different sensibility with an interest centered in capturing the mood of the local place and particularly of a busy street. It had been Week’s predilection in composing pictures, where the interest was centered in capturing the transient effects of light, the atmospheric ambience, and the immediacy of the moment, which in this instance of the painting all the three elements are well marked and brilliantly executed.
Week’s paintings are set against the stage of architecture, which is very clearly seen here. There are buildings on the left, in the far background and one the right. Their placement almost forms a stage, with the street in front as a proscenium. This kind of stage setting was a commonality of the arrangement of pictorial elements in Week’s paintings. Nevertheless it has been sensitively perceived and composed that the work is almost audible, as one can feel the sights and sounds of the hustle, bustle and the buzz of the street as traders and people jostle each other, haggling in buying and selling the wares, and the crowd, which is present is delineated with people in conversation, a lone policemen riding his horse and keeping a watch; with another horse rider in the middle ground, women in traditional sartorial attire carrying their wares on their heads to be hawked in this busy street. And the crowd of people to the right is represented as a mass of colours in brown to show the shadowed part of the composition. The building, which Week has represented in this part of the composition, is interesting as it has a prominent shaped bracket on its façade, which makes the elevation beautiful and graceful. At the side of this building is an open balcony where two women are shown in conversation as they watch the busy street below. Adjacent to this building is another one, which has a semi curved bracket or strut like element to support the prominent balcony above it. These two structures from its style and construction may belong to the rich members of the society. In contrast to these structures, the three storied building at the far end appears middle class with many rooms and tenants.
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