Discover colonial India through the paintings of William Hodges

A View of the Fort of Agra on the River Jumna by William Hodges
| Photograph Credit score: DAG

A View of the Fort of Agra on the River Jumna painted by William Hodges in 1786 exhibits the Taj Mahal as a wispy define misplaced in an aquatint dream. Within the foreground, males propel boats on the Yamuna, individuals stand on its sandy banks, and past the dense shrubbery that crowds it rises the ramparts of Agra fort, menacing and huge.

For a lot of a Briton within the late 1700s, the portray maybe served as the primary glimpse of India’s most well-known architectural panorama. It was practically 200 years after the East India Firm had first sailed to India’s shores and begun to commerce and rule that William Hodges got here to the subcontinent as a pioneer of types to “treatment Europe’s visible ignorance of India”.

The e book that accompanies the exhibition William Hodges and the Prospect of India
| Photograph Credit score:
DAG

DAG, Delhi, showcases the first-ever exhibition of the total set of 48 aquatints of Choose Views in India engraved by Hodges. Curated by Giles Tillotson, senior VP, Exhibitions, DAG, the present accompanied by a e book, traces Hodges journey although Bengal, Bihar and the United Provinces, freezing in colors of dun, inexperienced and blue, the India of the day.

Hodges had accompanied explorer James Cook dinner on his second voyage to the Pacific islands, capturing its places and other people in panorama portray. “His travels within the South Pacific by ship alerted him to atmospheric results. He additionally learnt quite a bit about unfamiliar civilisations,” says Giles.

William Hodges
| Photograph Credit score:
DAG

Spurred by a way of journey for the unfamiliar, Hodges journeyed East and met Warren Hastings, then Governor-Normal, on his voyage to Calcutta in 1780. It was a time when the Firm was flexing its navy muscle — the First Anglo-Maratha battle was on and Hastings ensured a secure passage for Hodges as he wove his method across the nation and out and in of battle zones.  

Travelling westwards, Hodges sailed up the wide-rolling Hooghly and the Ganga to Murshidabad and Rajmahal, by means of Benares and Allahabad, to Agra and Gwalior, pausing alongside the best way to seize vignettes of life and monuments, thus changing into the primary skilled British painter to place collectively an in depth corpus on colonial India. “Hodges deployed the English aesthetic often known as the Picturesque, during which he was skilled. This tends to stress wreck and irregularity, avoiding symmetry and order. So the imaginative and prescient of India suggests a spot in decline,” says Giles.

A view of the Musjd at Jionpoor
| Photograph Credit score:
DAG

The symbols of British India — pennants and crimson coats, bonnets and pith helmets — are ignored in Hodges’ work. As a substitute, he turns his brush to capturing cities and cities that after had been stars in the course of the heyday of Mughal rule. “Hodges was little fascinated about British India. His goal was to indicate his compatriots what India’s personal civilisations and panorama seemed like,” says Giles.

The work characteristic mouldering ruins, peaceable villages and placid rivers with individuals engaged in day by day chores. The sunshine is commonly meridional and the sepia ink captures a temper that’s nearly like a reminiscence of an India lengthy forgotten. “The works on show are all aquatints. He has then added watercolour by hand. The Picturesque favours such a managed palette. The usage of vibrant colors to seize India’s vitality is a characteristic of later European artwork, from the late nineteenth Century,” provides Giles.

A View of the Nice Pagoda at Tanjore
| Photograph Credit score:
DAG

In A View of Chinsura, Hodges paints the Authorities Home with the Outdated Dutch Church on the waterfront and the bell tower in shades of white and brown. It’s maybe a uncommon file of those buildings as they had been demolished in 1990. Shades of inexperienced and gold crowd the panorama in A View within the Jungle Terry, a portray that celebrates the forests within the foothills of the Himalayas. Nearer house, Hodges brings alive the good Pagoda at Tanjore, providing the viewer a glimpse of life alongside an excellent cultural icon of the South. “Hodges noticed himself as exploring points of India’s cultural historical past, primarily for European consumption in his personal time,” says Giles.

Hodges painted in tones of nostalgia, and at this time’s viewers will get to view an India that’s quick fading into reminiscence.

The exhibition is on at DAG, 22 A, Janpath Highway, Windsor Place, New Delhi until January 25; 11am-7pm.