India's colonial past revealed through 200 masterful paintings
Founded in 1600 as a trading enterprise, the English East India Company gradually transformed into a colonial power.
By the late 18th Century, as it tightened its grip on India, Company officials began commissioning Indian artists - many formerly employed by the Mughals - to create striking visual records of the land they were now ruling.
A Treasury of Life: Indian Company Paintings, c. 1790 to 1835, an ongoing show in the Indian capital put together by DAG, an art gallery in Delhi, features over 200 works that once lay on the margins of mainstream art history. It is India's largest exhibition of Company paintings, highlighting their rich diversity and the skill of Indian artists.
Painted by largely unnamed artists, these paintings covered a wide range of subjects, but mainly fall into three categories: natural history, like botanical studies; architecture, including monuments and scenic views of towns and landscapes; and Indian manners and customs.
"The focus on these three subject areas reflects European engagements with their Indian environment in an attempt to come to terms with all that was unfamiliar to Western eyes," says Giles Tillotson of DAG, who curated the show.
"Europeans living in India were delighted to encounter flora and fauna that were new to them, and ancient buildings in exotic styles. They met – or at least observed – multitudes of people whose dress and habits were strange but – as they began to discern – were linked to stream of religious belief and social practice."
