Nineteenth Century
Art of Bengal

Amit Mukhopadhyay

Opening an exhibition of historic prints in 1954, the famous historian Jadunath Sarkar said, “British role in India did inspire pictorial art of a high order, and the first full century of their dominion, from 1757 to 1857 has preserved on canvas and paper many scenes and landscape of India which have now mostly vanished—Let us be thankful to early British artists who presented their beauty in its virgin purity.”

The British role in India had two distinct phases of development, one, before 1757, until then they were mainly traders, and their main aim was to secure the means for distributing enormous dividends on the shares of their economy. Young English civilians who came to India in the early part of the eighteenth century went by the name of writers, a very applicable name, as they were mere clerks.