Art education in

Colonial India
Instructor: Dr. Naubada Ali
Impact of British Imperialism in
India
• The establishment of the British
Empire greatly influenced the
architecture and culture of India and
led to a fusion of styles and
techniques.
• Imperial trade was to take everything
of value and to give vey little in return
and take the profit home.
• Destruction of local economy was
deliberate and intended to ensure
the industrial products from England
 • The establishment of the British Empire
in the 18th century laid the foundation
Impact of British for modern India’s contact with the
West. Westernization paved the way
Imperialism in for a radical change of artistic taste,
India and a style emerged that represented
the adjustment of traditional artists to
new fashions and demands.
Trade Competition

• In Europe, the trade competition was Intense-England had to lead but the French
and especially the Germans were catching up fast.
• In the early century England was faced with a great dilemma the volume of goods
produced by the industry of England was far greater than the French or Germans,
yet their profits began to fall, and lag begin
• In other words, the sales of England products were high, the volume of goods was
larger, yet the profits were lower
Trade Competition
• The German goods command higher price so despite their volume
sales being lower than the England the profit were higher- the
question to be investigated was why were the German products
attracting higher prices for the same or similar goods

• Their design quality was better, looks and esthetic played a part; the
hitherto English industrialist concentrated on volume, lower prices
• A commission was setup with Prince Escort
as the Chair to examine the issue
• The Commission sent a delegation to visit
the German and French Industries and they
had concluded that art education should be
reintroduced.
• Formal Schools began to emphasize art
teaching and to train art teachers in
product design
Great Exhibitions
• France took the lead, in 1798
September to organize an
exhibition to display its products of
industry and from other countries
that it controlled. A series of 11
exhibitions were held

• England followed with its grandest

effort yet in 1851

•
Crystal Palace
Exhibition
• .
An international exhibition, took place
in Hyde Park, London, from 1 May to
15 October 1851. It was the first in a
series of World's Fairs, exhibitions of
culture and industry that became
popular in the 19th century
Crystal Palace Exhibition

• A special building, named The Crystal Palace, or "The Great Shalimar",

was built to house the show. It was designed by Joseph Paxton with
support from structural engineer Charles Fox, the committee
overseeing its construction including Isambard Kingdom Brunel, and
went from its organization to the grand opening in just nine months
 Interior of the building
From the interior, the building's large size was
emphasized with trees and statues; this served,
not only to add beauty to the spectacle, but also
to demonstrate man's triumph over nature. The
Crystal Palace was an enormous success,
considered an architectural marvel, but also an
engineering triumph that showed the
importance of the Exhibition itself. The building
was later moved and re-erected in 1854 in
enlarged form at Sydenham Hill in south
London, an area that was renamed Crystal
Palace. It was destroyed by fire on 30 November
1936
Art Education in 19th-Century Colonial India

• Education was one of several means by which colonial powers sought to sustain
and strengthen their authority over dependent cultures. Colonialism in India was
displayed more openly and dominantly over a larger mass of humanity than in
any other colonial territory. The British ruled India from 1757 to 1947, staying
longer and exercising greater influence than any other European power. Besides
India’s economic and military might, there were numerous other reasons for
making India an integral part of the British Empire.
Establishment of Art Schools

From the mid-nineteenth century, art schools supported by the British Government
were founded in major Indian cities such as Madras (Chennai), Calcutta (Kolkata),
Bombay (Mumbai), and Lahore focused on industrial arts. Some of these schools
were renamed “school of arts” and renamed again as “school of arts and crafts”,
which was one of the reasons nineteenth century art education history in India is
unique and important in global design education history.
Art Education

Although European academic art education mainly based on life

drawing was introduced in most art schools in India, some British
teachers sought to develop art education methods based on traditional
Indian art and industrial arts. Unlike the British art schools established
in major Indian cities, some other art schools founded by the
Maharajas (Indian princes) attempted to cultivate local art traditions.
Madras School of Art

• On May 01, 1850, the Madras School of Art

was established by Alexander Hunter (1816-
n.d.), Resident Surgeon of the Madras
Presidency, as a private art school.
•
• The Government School of Design was founded in London in 1837.
When the Madras school of Art opened an industrial arts section
after its foundation, the term “design” was added to the school’s
name. The development of the first art schools in India was closely
associated with the Government School of Design in Britain
• The name of the art school was altered several times. On the inauguration of the
industrial arts section in June 1851, it was amended from the Madras School of
Art to the Madras School of Art and Industry. In 1852, after being taken over by
the government, it was renamed the Government School of Industrial Arts and
has since been referred to also as the Industrial School of Arts, the Madras School
of Art and Design, and the Madras School of Arts and Crafts. In the twentieth
century, the name changed again to the Government School of Arts and Crafts,
Madras, to the Government College of Arts and Crafts, and to the Government
College of Fine Arts, Chennai, at the beginning of the twenty-first century.
• The schools were later incorporated
into a government institution called the
School of Industrial Arts and consisted
of two departments, one artistic and
the other industrial. The artistic
department taught drawing in all its
branches while the industrial
department offered instruction in crafts
such as silverwork, metalwork, jewelry,
cabinet making, carpet weaving, and
pottery
India’s craft traditions

• Other faculty appointed after Hunter were responsible for continuing

to revive India’s craft traditions at the art school in Madras. The work-
shops at the school produced tiles, bricks, and terracotta ornaments,
making the school a chief supplier to local industries and the
government. Subjects like woodwork, pottery, metalwork, and
jewelry were also introduced, and students were assisted by local
artisans
Calcutta (Kolkata)

• The Government College of Art &

Craft in Kolkata is one of the oldest
art schools in India. It was founded
at Garanhata, Chitpur as the School
of Industrial Art on August 16, 1854,
as a private art school. In 1864, it
was renamed the Government
School of Art, and in 1951 it became
the Government College of Art &
Craft.
• The institution in its origin had a distinct character of its
own. But the movement for its start may be traced much
earlier than when it first came to the light of day. The
Mechanics Institute or Institution was founded in Calcutta
on the 26th of February, 1839 to provide for young men,
preferably of the Eurasian brand, training in mechanical
arts.

• The prominent Europeans and Indians formed a committee

of management for the institution. The institution began
with promise but could not carry on long for want of public
support.
Industrial Art

• As Chandra Bagal wrote, there was also no clear distinction in India between the
fine arts and crafts and the fine arts and mechanical arts. The term “industrial
arts” was used in the names of most major art schools founded in India in the
nineteenth century.
Mechanics Institute in Calcutta

• Before the foundation of the Calcutta school, there was a Mechanics

Institute or Institution in Calcutta founded in February 1839 for
providing mechanical arts training for young men. As the Mechanics’
Institutes were educational establishments originally founded to
provide adult education to working men in mainly technical subjects,
they were often funded by local industrialists as they would
ultimately benefit from having more knowledgeable and skilled
employees.
The school’s aim

• The school’s aim was to develop new sources of industrial occupation

for the educated classes of the native population. Further, this could
provide employment and introduce the idea of taste and refinement
in the arts among the upper classes, thus, offering them the
opportunity to invest in the arts at affordable prices
• Under the leadership of Henry Locke from 1864, Redgrave’s drawing course was
faithfully followed, commencing with elementary line drawing, freehand, shaded
freehand, and geometrical drawing. Locke was also the first to introduce drawing
from antique casts at the school.

• He offered a specialization course in the visual arts: elementary painting,

modeling and design, technical design, lithography, wood engraving, and
photography. The aim behind this course was to train students to rep- resent
accurately by advancing from line to the solid object, then onto nature drawing
Bombay (Mumbai)
• In Bombay, or Mumbai, the School of Art and Industry or the Sir J. J.
School of Art and Industry was founded on March 02, 1857 by a Parsi-
Indian merchant and philanthropist, Sir Jamsetjee Jeejebhoy (1783-
1859), who was impressed by the quality of the craftworks at the
Great Exhibition held in Hyde Park, London, in 1851. He decided that
there needed to be a school for art and industry in Bombay to train
Indian craftsmen.
• The school started with elementary
drawing and design classes at the
Elphinstone Institute, but its main
purpose was to provide instructions in
painting, drawing and design,
ornamental pottery, metal, and wood-
carving and turning. Complicated
machinery was indispensable, and
training was provided by master
craftsmen who could manufacture
artistic craft products and preserve the
traditional skills and techniques of
Indian crafts
foundation course

• Crowe taught orthographic projection and geometrical and figure

drawing at the school as well as offered private lessons in watercolor.
Given the history of ancient Indian art and the use of fine arts, he
argued that Indian students had much sensitivity for using the eye
and the finger and would make excellent copyists.
• The curriculum of the foundation course included freehand drawing
from copies and outline from foliage, drawing from copies, light and
shade from ornament, and drawing from the round, perspective, and
geometry. Once students had mastered these techniques, they were
sent to advanced classes of drawing from life.
 Lahore

• In 1875, the Mayo School of Industrial Arts,

named in honor of the recently
assassinated British Viceroy of India Lord
Mayo, and the Lahore Museum were
founded in Lahore, Punjab. John Lockwood
Kipling, who had been teaching in Bombay,
was made the first curator of the Lahore
Museum and the first principal of the Mayo
School of Industrial Arts. The Mayo School
of Industrial Arts was restructured as the
National College of Arts, Pakistan, in 1958.
• In 1961, based on a report by Charles and Ray Eames, the National
Institute of Design, one of the first design research and educational
institutes in India, was founded in Ahmedabad by the Indian
government. However, design education in India in a broad sense
started in the mid nineteenth century at the three art schools
founded in Madras, Calcutta, and Bombay, with a further school being
founded in Lahore in 1875. These schools were also the first art
schools or industrial art schools in Asia. Although they were
established during the colonial period and basically managed by the
British government, they were very important to the development of
art and design education in India and Asia
John Lockwood Kipling
• John Lockwood Kipling was a rare breed of as imperialist who made
his lifelong passion to study the arts and crafts on India. He was only a
teenager when he visited the great exhibition. He seems to have been
dazzled by the Indian pavilion. He was obviously interested in art. He
completed his degree and took a job with the V&V museum, then
went on to join the newly started school of art in Bombay. His basic
for the arts and crafts of India became evident in his method of
teaching. He insisted that students must learn from their existing
tradition. He choose his students from families of craftsperson and
taught them to analyze the existing masterpieces of art surrounding
them.
• While the Madras School and Calcutta school moved to traditional
art, the Bombay school taught mainly western art. Although many
teachers who came from Britain were graduates of the South
Kensington school, their ideas about art and design changed over the
generations from industrial arts to fine arts in the 1860s-70s and from
fine arts to the arts and crafts in the 1880s-90s.
Johan Zoffany, Sir Elijah Impey with his family in Calcutta, 1783. Sir Elijah Impey was the first judge of Supreme Court of
Judicature in Calcutta and his wife, Lady Mary Impey (seated next to Sir Elijah) was a natural historian
A group of Indian troopers who fought for the English, Ghulam Ali Khan, 1815-16
Trained in the late Mughal style
and patronized by the Nawabs of
Murshidabad and Patna, they
quickly learned to use English
watercolors on English Watman
watercolor paper and take
English botanical still lives as
their models. In this way an
extraordinary fusion of English
and Mughal artistic impulses
took place.
English child seated on a pony and surrounded by three Indian
servants by Shaikh Muhammad Amir
The Daniells' ‘The Old Fort, Ghaut’ — views of Calcutta; plate 6, 1787.
The Daniells' ‘Calcutta from the River Hooghly: Gentoo Buildings’ — views of Calcutta, plate 8, 1788.
Industry in Prisons

• The Government of Britain, always sensitive to profit making decided

to organize the production, acquisition and sale hence profit from the
artifacts of India.
• Prisoners all over put to work to produce goods for the government;
Markets were encouraged to produce goods which were bought at
low price and taken to world market…and it was decided to set up
schools of industrial art to keep the stream of excellent crafts alive
and productive. It was said to give the Indian craftsmen an idea of
European taste and esthetic preference.
Art Education Systems in the Colony: Success or Failure?

Increasing Revenue
Cultural Imperialism
commercial significance
Difference in both countries
• England had 23 schools of art, well supported by public grants as well as the
government while in India there were only four schools of art, each separated
from its nearest neighbor by a distance averaging 900 miles.

• Lack of opportunities for practical art training in India as opposed to Britain. In

England, opportunities for practical training of art students outside the art school
were buttressed by the studios and workshops of large and wealthy firms.

• There was an unlimited supply of trained designers in England, and capitalists

investing money in the industry got the best talent to work for them. In India, on
the other hand, this was not possible as there were neither trained designers nor
workshops to supplement what the others lacked
Art education contributed to cultural imperialism by teaching young
people in colonial societies that their traditional arts were not as highly
ranked in an aesthetic hierarchy as European arts, nor their artistic
taste as finely cultivated as that of European experts. The early schools
in India operated largely as vehicles for a kind of cultural imperialism in
which curiously misplaced models of Western academic art were
imposed on Indian students to the detriment of any training
whatsoever in native techniques