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One would expect a native artist to feel best the pulse of his
country. So, it comes as a surprise to learn that British artists
were the first to capture India on canvas.
It seems difficult to
believe now, but until the last quarter of the 18th
century, when the visiting British landscape artists made sketches of
the Taj Mahal at Agra and the Jama Masjid and the Qutub Minar at New
Delhi, nobody who had not been to Agra or Delhi could have known what
these magnificent monuments look like. One had to visualize their
grandeur from the written accounts alone. Because until then there
had been no visual record of India owing to the absence of the genre
of landscape painting in an otherwise rich Indian art. The visiting
artists’ sketches not only provided the first ever visual
pictures of India to the outside world, but the pictorial record left
by them also amounted to a discovery of India by Indians themselves.
William Hodges was the
first British professional landscape artist to land in India in 1780.
He made two tours in Upper India, in the course of which he made
drawings of the Ganga scene, the colourful ghats of Varanasi, and the
wonderful monuments at Lucknow, Agra, Fatehpur Sikri and Gwalior. He
could not, however, visit Delhi because of the political instability
prevailing in the area at that time.
The next professional
landscape artists to visit India were Thomas Daniell and his nephew
William Daniell who arrived at Calcutta early in 1786. The most
prominent of all British landscape artists to visit India, they
travelled extensively across the country as no foreigner, and indeed
very few Indians, had ever done before. The Daniell made two grand
tours of India.The first was a journey through North India, from
September 1788 to November 1791.
Travelling by boat up the
Ganga as far as Cawnpore (now Kanpur), they sketched the monuments
and picturesque sights along the river. They then travelled overland
to Delhi in the company of some British military officers, sketching
the magnificent Mughal monuments in Agra en route. They were the
first foreign artists to visit Delhi, and made a large number of
drawings of the city during the three weeks that they spent there.
Some of the Daniells’
sketches of the monuments in and around Delhi are of special interest
as they depict buildings that no longer exist, for example the Qudsia
Bagh and an ancient building near Kotla Firuz Shah. Of similar
importance is their sketch of the Qutub Minar near Delhi, because it
is not only the first view of the Qutub made by any artist, but it is
also the only original print which shows the complete minar. The top
seen in their aquatint was shattered by an earthquake in 1803.
From Delhi, the Daniells
toured the Garhwal Himalayas for almost a month. Leaving for the
plains again early in 1789, they set off on the return journey to
Calcutta, stopping at Lucknow on the way. During their travels, they
built up a large stock of drawings.While they made a number of oil
paintings during their stay in India, on returning to England they
published their monumental work, Oriental Scenery, consisting
of 144 aquatints in six parts between 1795 and 1808. Of these, their
views of the Himalayas were the first ever visual impression of the
Himalayan ranges and the eleven aquatints of Delhi vividly bring to
life the monuments of the city as they were 200 years ago.
While the British
professional landscape artists were assembling the first ever visual
impressions of India, a host of amateur artists were simultaneously
observing the recording the Indian scenes. Many of them were highly
talented, and often the finds a very thin line demarcating their work
from that of the professionals. A number of such amateur artists
were busy drawing in north India in the early years of the 19th
century. They were mostly army officers in the employ of the East
India Company and their sketches were, in a number of cases,
eventually published as engravings or lithographs.
One of the highly
accomplished amateur artists who deserves particular mention was
Lieutenant-Colonel Charles Ramus Forrest who served in India in the
first quarter of the 19th century. He sailed along the
Ganga and Yamuna, and the views of the scenes encountered by him
during the trip were engraved and published in 1824 along with his
account of the journey entitled A Picturesque Tour along the
Rivers Ganga and Yamuna, in India. His views of the Ganga scene
easily excel those of all other amateur artists, while two especially
fine plates of his views along the Yamuna are those of the Taj Mahal
and the Palace of the King of Delhi, Taken from the Principal
Mosque.
An equally talented
amateur artist was Colonel Robert Smith who was posted a Garrison
Engineer in Delhi from 1822 to 1830. He painted numerous monuments
in an around Delhi, but the whereabouts of very few of his paintings
are now known. He has executed a series of excellent watercolor
drawings of the picturesque scenes as he sailed down the Ganga after
his retirement in 1830.
Commander Robert Elliot
was an other exceptionally gifted amateur artist. He travelled
widely during his stay in north India and made numerous sketches of
the places he visited. Major john Luard’s View in India,
Saint Helena and Car Nicobar appeared around 1833. As
lithography was gradually replacing the medium of aquatint by that
time, the plates in Luard’s book are uncoloured lithographs.
Some of the finest tinted lithographs of views of Delhi and north
India were views of Delhi and north India were executed from drawings
by T.C. Dibdin and David Roberts after sketches by Lieutenant Thomas
Bacon. Published under the Oriental Portfolio in 1841, these
included two particularly fine views of the Chandni Chowk and the
mausoleum of Safdarjung.
One of the few amateur
artists outside the ranks of the East India Company officials who
made some of the finest sketches of the Himalayas as well as Calcutta
was James Baillie Fraser. He came to Calcutta in 1813, and went on
an expedition into the Garhwal Himalayas to the sources of the rivers
Yamuna and Ganga two years later. He became the first European to
reach Gangotri and made many sketches of the enchanting mountain
scenery en route.Twenty of his drawing were turned into aquatints
by the famous engraver Robert Havell and published in 1820 as vies
in the Himalaya Mountains in a large portfolio volume. These
not only supplemented the Daniells’ views of the Garhwal
Himalayas, but some of Fraser’s views even excel those of the
former. His sketch of the Gangotri temple sin particular captures
the breathtaking beauty of the mountains as no other artist has ever
done.
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