Confluence of Indian artistry and European patronage: The Company School of Art
By Sarthak Gupte,
FY BSc. (2023-2027)
If History is a mystic tale, then Art is the testament that captures its every detail, preserving the echoes of the foregone era for generations to come. Ancient Indian Art styles are much known and celebrated today. The pre-colonial painting styles of India, that differed from region to region, were practiced by indigenous artists for a very long period. Some of the traditional folk art styles were the Madhubani, Warli, Tanjore, Kalighat, Kalamkari, Pattachitra, Gond, Phad and Miniature style paintings. Most of you might be well-acquainted with these names! From time to time, various rulers supported artists which helped the art forms to develop and flourish. The Royals would usually commission artworks that depicted their opulent wealth and deeds of courage and glory. The paintings themselves were adorned with gold. The commoners were often never to be seen. The arrival of the European powers was a disruption not only to the rule of these kingdoms but also to the artistic practices prevalent at the time. These strangers were in complete awe of the people, their clothes and occupations, the exotic flora and fauna of India and wished to record everything they saw.
Indian painters, exceptionally skilled at minute detailing and crisp rendering, were patronized to replicate this environment with utmost realism. The paintings that were thus produced during the 18th and 19th centuries primarily by Indian artists for European clients came to be known as ‘Company Paintings’.
Unknown artist, ‘Garden view of the Taj Mahal’ from: Sixty drawings of Mughal monuments and architectural details, Delhi, c.1836.Company style. © Victoria and Albert Museum.
The Company School of Art or the Kampani Qalam is a collective term for a variety of artistic styles that emerged due to European influence on the local artisans. Its main purpose was documentation rather than giving visual pleasure. Several East India Company officers commissioned paintings to capture images of their surroundings and send them back to England. Apart from personal interest, botanical explorations that accompanied British imperialism also led to excellent foliage studies by Indians artisans for European botanists.
Before the arrival of the colonialists, artists were sustaining themselves because of the patronage of the local rulers and were trained in their indigenous styles which were inherited from the previous generations. The Mughal Miniature and Tanjore style paintings were two such examples. With the declining control of the Mughals and other administrators over the Indian subcontinent in the 18th century, artists had to search for new patrons to earn a livelihood. The Europeans were just the right masters! Artisans started migrating to administrative city centers of Calcutta, Patna, Murshidabad, Agra, Benares, Madras and Delhi, Madras being the birthplace of this distinct style. Each of the places had a unique way of presenting the Company Art.
This led to the new artworks, discernible with considerable influence of the artistic practices of their predecessors, giving rise to classifications among the Company School. The works produced by North Indian artists differed greatly with those from their South Indian counterparts.
Let’s take a look at a pre-colonial style and a Company style painting.
The Great Hornbill. A Mughal style work.
Folio From The Shahjahan Album, Ca.1540. Painting By Mansur. The Met Museum Cc0
Oriental Pied Hornbill (Anthracocerus Albirostris). A Company Painting.
The Cunninghame Graham Album (Ca. 1800-1804) Image Rights: Dag.
The magnificent border has disappeared from the 19th century hornbill. The bird had now taken center stage, with much detailing. The background however, remained blank, a typical characteristic of this colonial style. Company painters mostly used paper as a base, sometimes ivory, wooden planks, mica and seldom silk and marble. Paper used as base made it easier for the British collectors to keep the illustrations in albums/portfolios, popularly called as muraqqa. These albums contained calligraphic inscriptions predominantly in Persian or Urdu which described the collection, the artist and images created. Bright colour pigments, akin to gouache, of Indian art failed to appeal to the British minds, eventually paving way to the usage of watercolours. Our artisans quickly absorbed the English method by integrating features of perspective, shadows and a sense of visual naturalism into their works.
The themes of the Company School Paintings were an honest reflection of the society of those times. The focus was on the local people, their dressing styles, their unfamiliar (to the Europeans) occupations. Perhaps the viewpoint of the foreigners towards an uncanny world was borrowed. A sarcastic shade of the European clients, who perceived the entire milieu around their new abodes with much curiosity, was a distinctive trait of some of the early Company paintings.
The most notable artists of this style include Bhawani Das, Shaikh Muhammad Amir, Ram Das, Shaikh Zain ud-Din, Sita Ram, Sewak Ram and Ghulam Ali Khan. Unfortunately, the contributions of thousands of other artists remained unrecognized due to lack of records and the undue attention towards the collectors.
The notable patrons were Sir Elijah Impey, who served as the first Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of Judicature at Fort William from 1774 to 1783 and his wife Lady Impey who commissioned illustrations of Indian birds, animals, plants and flowers of their menagerie (private mini zoo) which led to the core of the Impey Album. Another collector, Richard Wellesley, Marquess Wellesley, who was the Governor-General of Bengal from 1798 to 1805, also patronized around 2,660 artworks of different indigenous plant species which later aided the study of Indian flora. His album is known today as the ‘Wellesley Album’. Both of them, notorious as British administrators, have contributed largely to this short-lived elegant art style. Without the patronage of several such European art enthusiasts, the Company School undeniably would not have survived.
A snake charmer and his wife. Unknown artist. Water colour. Tanjore, South India. Ca. 1850.
View of the Jama Masjid, Delhi. Mazhar Ali Khan, ca.1840.
The Company Style started declining from the 20th century mainly due to two reasons: the establishment of British Art schools in India to train Indian artisans in British Academic techniques and the invention of cameras that could now serve the purpose of documentation, and in a much more precise manner as compared to paintings.
Due to Western patronage, these stunning masterpieces are found only in private collections and museums of the Western countries. Though much ignored and forgotten, the Company Paintings have opened a window to India’s early colonial past, providing us with a firsthand account of several dimensions of our ancestors’ lifestyles.
References:
1. Bhowmik, R. (2023). Company Painting as Hybrid Style: On Europeanism in Indian Art. In B. Mersmann & H. Ohls (Eds.), Okzidentalismen: Projektionen und Reflexionen des Westens in Kunst, Ästhetik und Kultur (1st ed., pp. 211–238). transcript Verlag. http://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctv371chtx.11
2. Chanda-Vaz, U. (2019, January 06). How the Indian everyman became a subject of art. Scroll.in.
3. Behl, B. (Director). (2014). The Paintings of India – Company Paintings. [Documentary]. Doordarshan National. YouTube.
4. Bengal & Co. – East Meets West In Company School Paintings. (2020, August 19). Sarmaya.