Empires of Light: Vision, Visibility and Power in Colonial India by Niharika Dinkar

Dewan, Deepali

doi:10.29411/ncaw.2023.22.1.8

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“…Prominent among the authors who have articulated the visual dimensions of this trope are Saloni Mathur 49 and Deepali Dewan. 50 Although neither author makes specific mention of the clay figures considered here, their characterisation of the common range of these images could apply equally to the craft figures produced in clay-the craftsman with his head bent as if concentrating on the task before him, his gestures and facial expression capturing the 'the knowledge of traditional Indian arts … being transferred from the craftsman's body to the object he produces'. 51 And like the two-dimensional images-often regionally specific-that they discuss, the clay figures too were commonly displayed in the exhibition context alongside the products of the craft concerned.…”

Section: The Reception Of the Figuresmentioning

confidence: 99%

Modelling India. Unfired clay figurines and the East India Company's collections: from devotional icons to didactic displays

MacGregor

2023

JRAS

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A well-known series of miniature figures produced in India from unfired clay, appropriately clothed and in many instances represented carrying out their respective secular or ritual duties, enjoyed a period of particular popularity on the world stage in the nineteenth century when they were appropriated as illustrative devices in museum displays and international exhibitions. Over the previous half-century or more they had emerged as products of a dynamic industry that responded to changes in taste as well as religious and artistic practice within Indian society, before being taken up by the West to serve new colonial imperatives. There they received perhaps their most enthusiastic reception at the India Museum, established in the headquarters of the East India Company in London in the early 1800s, and surviving beyond the suppression of the Company itself until they were dispersed to a number of other institutions in 1879. From an early appearance at the Great Exhibition in 1851, the figures also became a regular feature of the international exhibitions of the latter part of the century. Initially they celebrated the traditional crafts and practices of India but gradually were recruited to communicate other messages of Western industrial dominance and perceived artistic and industrial superiority. Although comparatively few of these figures survive intact in Western collections, the history of their considerable impact on the European stage can be enlarged upon with the aid of the documentary record.

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Section: The Reception Of the Figuresmentioning

confidence: 99%

Modelling India. Unfired clay figurines and the East India Company's collections: from devotional icons to didactic displays

MacGregor

2023

JRAS

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

Empires of Light: Vision, Visibility and Power in Colonial India by Niharika Dinkar

Cited by 1 publication

References 0 publications

Modelling India. Unfired clay figurines and the East India Company's collections: from devotional icons to didactic displays

Modelling India. Unfired clay figurines and the East India Company's collections: from devotional icons to didactic displays

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