Samuel Bourne was a banker with itchy feet. Paintings of India so enamoured him that he quit his job in Nottingham and arrived in Calcutta in 1863. Now regarded as one of the earliest travel photographers in the world, Bourne started exploring Indian landscapes in the hills of Shimla and spent months in Kashmir, returning… Read more »
John Burke was an Irish photographer who took some of the earliest photos ever of Afghanistan. Employed as a tradesman in his homeland, he applied to the British Army to work as an official photographer; he’s best known for his work during the second Anglo-Afghan war. Later, he travelled to Afghanistan at his own expense,… Read more »
By the time Felice Beato arrived with his camera in 1858, the actual fighting had stopped. How then did he create such evocative photographs of war?
At: Pundole’s Auction House, Ballard Estate, Mumbai; On: 2nd February, 2018 Cyanotype printing was developed around the same time as its albumen counterpart in the early 1800s, but it used salts of iron to produce blue-coloured prints on a white background. It was widely used in mapping architectural projects and biological documentations and inspired the coining… Read more »
Dates: 21st September, 2017 to 18th February,2018 Venue: The Tasting Room, Good Earth, Raghuvanshi Mills, Mumbai One of the earliest known ways of storytelling on the subcontinent, Tholu Bommalata or shadow puppet theatre is a traditional craft, passed down from father to son in the Rayalseema region of current-day Andhra Pradesh. Players manipulate the puppets… Read more »
Phejin Konyak is the great-granddaughter of a tattooed head-hunter, Ahon, who was a prominent member of the Konyak tribe of Nagaland. Through her, we meet a nearly-extinct tribe from the remotest corners of Nagaland.
First published in 1689, this book was written by a surgeon who is best remembered today for his descriptions of seventeenth-century India and Persia. The publication was feted for its accuracy and wealth of cartographical detail.
Hailing from the Asnona village of Portuguese Goa, A.X. Trindade was a student of one of the earliest batches of Sir J.J. School of Art, Bombay, and was trained in the classical style of academic realism. Like all students trained in the school during this period, he was an expert in various mediums like watercolour,… Read more »
The Hoysalas are perhaps best known for the beautiful works of architecture and sculpture they left behind. A Kannadiga empire that ruled areas of southern Deccan and the Cauvery valley between the 11th and 14th centuries CE, their origins have been traced to a group of hill-dwellers hailing from the region near present-day Halebid. Legend… Read more »
A keen amateur photographer and a member of the Bombay Photographic Society in 1854, Colonel Thomas H Biggs actually had a pretty serious day job. He joined as an officer of the Bombay Artillery in 1841 and was later made captain. In 1855, the Bombay government commissioned him to document the architectural and archaeological sites… Read more »
Murad Bakhsh (1624-1661) was the youngest son of Shah Jahan. He was very successful in the initial stages of the Balkh-Badakhshan campaign of 1646, but when he left the expedition to return to Agra, it created a permanent rift between him and his father and resulted in his expulsion from the Mughal court. Later, Murad… Read more »
Engraving or etching is the process of deriving a print on paper from an engraved surface made of wood, metal or stone. There are many ways to create an engraved print such as a linocut, woodcut or block-print—Indians have been printing in this way from the 16th century. Prints gained massive popularity because you could… Read more »
The Gond community is regarded as one of the oldest and largest surviving adivasi communities of India. The term Gond is derived from the word ‘Kond’ meaning ‘green mountains’; a majority of the people live in the lush forested regions of Madhya Pradesh, but there are also some Gonds to be found in pockets of… Read more »
The first Indian Uprising broke out in the East India Company’s army in May, 1857 and the campaign to suppress it lasted till April 1859. The course of the Uprising followed five distinct phases; first came the outbreak and the measures taken immediately; this was followed by the capture of Delhi and the two reliefs… Read more »
The Pattachitra tradition practiced in Odisha and West Bengal is the art of creating religious paintings on fabric, walls, palm leaves or manuscripts. The tradition grew out of ornamenting the sanctum sanctorum of the Jagannatha Temple in Puri, Odisha and eventually spilled out onto different surfaces. Pattachitras were originally created by the chitrakara class of… Read more »
Jangarh exemplified the natural theme of Gondi painting. The silent message is clear—everything is interconnected
The patachitra tradition practiced in Orissa and West Bengal is the art of creating religious paintings on cloth, wall, palm-leaf or manuscripts. The tradition grew out of ornamenting the sanctum sanctorum of the Jagannatha Temple in Puri, eventually branching out into other domains. They were originally created by the artist (chitrakara) class of Orissa called… Read more »
TEMPLE TRAILS: TRACING THE ARCHITECTURE OF THE CHOLA DYNASTY
by Pradeep Chakravarthy
December 2, 2017
A beginner’s guide to the beauty, history and narratives behind three Chola temples
This is a gold mohur issued by Alamgir II (1699-1759) and minted in Shahjahanabad. Alamgir II was a Mughal Emperor, who ruled from the capital of Delhi during the latter part of the 18th century. Being raised to the throne at the age of fifty-five, he was a relatively weak and incapable ruler, and was… Read more »
Thomas H. Sherratt’s original engraving and etching, The Storming of Delhi is based upon a design created by Matthew Somerville Morgan (M. S. Morgan), depicting the siege of Kashmiri Gate (Delhi) during the Uprising of 1857. After weeks of planning from the ridge under the leadership of John Nicholson, the British captured the city of… Read more »