India British Period (1800AD-1947AD) - Art and Culture

Rita Pandey

Indian skills in spinning, weaving, ivory, intricate gold, and silver work suffered a setback caused by establishment of mills and factories.  A self-contained and independent agricultural community was forced to depend on low level government employment that required the knowledge of English.  Indian languages became less important.

Forts, administrative buildings, factories, churches, railway stations, post offices, and bungalows were made to facilitate British activities.  The architectural style included Gothic elements of pointed arches and stained-glass windows as well as Indo-Islamic features.  Fort William in Kolkata, Fort St. George and St. George’s church in Chennai and Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj railway station, Gateway of India in Mumbai are some of the architectural examples of this period.

Indian artists learned to use watercolor and to paint with oil.  Western techniques of transparency of texture, broad strokes as well as treatment of perspective, volume, and recession were simulated.  They beautifully blended Rajput and Mughal art with the western taste with the use of soft colors. The British did use the local artists to paint local day-to-day life, traditions, flora, and fauna (Figure-1). 

Figure 1-water color painting of a black stork in landscape, 1780.

During mid-18^th century Raja Ravi Verma became well known for his oil paintings. His paintings displayed the fusion of European art with Indian sensibility (Figure-2).  Later in 1894 he started the Lithographic printing press.

 Figure 2- oil painting of Shakuntala, 1898

While artists were mastering painting styles, several other technologies such as photography, voice recorder, cinema, gramophones, were introduced to benefit and entertain British.  Introduced in 1840, photography captured the history as well as culture of that period.  Shakespeare became an integral part of Indian curriculum.  Western classics were translated into several Indian languages and Indian scriptures were translated into western languages as well.  Massive amounts of old Indian manuscripts were summarily removed from India to the western archives.

                 Traditional dance and music continued.  Besides the mythological and spiritual themes, the court dance was encouraged and became a profession. (Figure 3, Figure 4).

Figure 3- traditional dance by T. Balasarswati, 1918

Figure 4- Ghazal and dance performance in the court of 6th Nizam of Hyderabad, Mahboob Ali Khan (1885) 

In 1897, a film presentation by Professor Stevenson featured a stage show in Kolkata.  A year later Mr. Hiralal Sen made a film of scenes from that show.  Next year H. S. Bhatavdekar’s ‘The Wrestlers’ was the first documentary film to be shot by an Indian.  In 1913, Dadasaheb Falke released Harishchandra - the first Indian film (Figure 5).

Figure 5-first silent Indian film Raja Harishchandra, 1913.

The Gramophone company was founded in 1898 in London.  During 1899-1908 Indian recordings included 15 Hindu, two Sikh, five Urdu, and two Arabic records. Besides entertainment, printing press played a major role during the time The first English newspaper printed in 1780 was the beginning of the printed journalism in India.  With the rise of British cruelty against people, newspapers called upon people to fight back.  Art, literature, and theater became the messenger of nationalist sentiments as well.  They highlighted ancient glory through classical and mythological literature to awaken the Indian pride. The Bengal art school arose as reaction against the academic art styles previously promoted in India, (Figure 6).

Figure 6-natoinalist painting of Bharat Mata by Abanindranath Tagore, 1905

Political commentary was incorporated into folk forms such as Powada and Tamasha, Kirtan, and performances of nautch girls. Plays such as Nil Darpan, Chakar Darpan, Gajadananda O Yubaraj, The Police of Pig and Sheep were written as satires against the Government.  K. P. Khadilkar’s play Keechak Vadha is a landmark in the theatre of protest. It was the allegory of an event in Mahabharata. Though no names were mentioned, everyone knew that Keechak was Lord Curzon, Draupadi was India, Yudhishtira was the moderator and Bheema the extremists in the Congress (Figure 7).

Figure 7 -Keechak Vadha, 1907.

References:

http://www.vam.ac.uk/content/articles/i/indian-company-paintings/
https://www.slideshare.net/AkhilArora1/company-school-painting
https://www.wikiart.org/en/raja-ravi-varma
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hindi_cinema
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/His_Master%27s_Voice
Impact of British on Indian Society and Culture (yourarticlelibrary.com)
https://www.artisera.com/blogs/expressions/how-the-bengal-school-of-art-changed-colonial-indias-art-landscape

IDC presentation by Dr Krishnakali Dasgupta, November 2019 https://www.indiadiscoverycenter.org/art-and-culture-british-period/

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Dr. Rita Pandey is a co-leader in the Arts and Culture track in India Discovery Center's project on "Evolution of Indian Culture: Pre-history to 1947AD"

More information and updates on the project are available at

https://www.facebook.com/Evolution-of-Indian-Culture-An-IDC-Project-107749391111922

More information on India Discovery Center is available at     https://www.indiadiscoverycenter.org

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