V&A in India

‘Indian Life and Landscape by Western Artists: Paintings and Drawings from the V&A 1790 1927’, is a travelling show; it has already been to five different cities (Mumbai/ Jodhpur/ Delhi/ Kolkata/ Hyderabad) before reaching its final destination in Bangalore.

The National Gallery of Modern Art (NGMA), Bangalore was inaugurated in February 2009 and it has taken more than a year for it to organise an international exhibition. ‘Indian Life and Landscape by Western Artists: Paintings and Drawings from the V&A 1790 1927’, is a travelling show; it has already been to five different cities (Mumbai/ Jodhpur/ Delhi/ Kolkata/ Hyderabad) before reaching its final destination in Bangalore. The exhibition was developed in collaboration between the Victoria & Albert Museum, London (V&A) and Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj Vastu Sangrahalaya (formerly Prince of Wales Museum), Mumbai. The works displayed in the exhibition have been culled out of the collection of the V&A. “The show has evoked good response in all the cities. More than half a million people have already seen this exhibition at these venues,” says Mark Jones, director of the V&A. In Kolkata alone, there were about 250,000 visitors. ‘Indian Life and Landscape by Western Artists’ has 93 small-format works of 30-odd western artists depicting the architecture, landscape and people of India. The show is dominated by four artists — William Carpenter, William Simpson, and the uncle-nephew duo: Thomas and William Daniell — who together make up for almost half of the works on display. Divided into four sections, the exhibition offers a glimpse of the country during the British Raj thereby evoking a sense of nostalgia and romantic vision of a bygone era. Old forts, palaces, tombs, ponds, places of worship, and birds eye view of cities are captured by artists; people at work, rest and leisure are also featured, alongwith street scenes of both big and small cities. The section titled ‘A Picturesque tour of India’, includes some fine pen and ink drawings and watercolours of the two Daniells. While pictures like ‘Eastern Gate’ of the Jummah Musjid at Delhi (Thomas Daniell / aquatint on paper/1975) present a grand view, wash drawings like ‘View of South India’ and ‘Ruined Temple’ offer a more subtle feel. Among the other striking images in this section is an aquatint on paper by Thomas Daniell titled ‘Hindu Temple’ at Agouree on the River Soane, ‘Bahar’ (1796) which intriguingly composes a temple amidst twisted roots of a gigantic banyan tree. The section also includes some neat but not necessarily exceptional watercolours by William Orme (1795 1819), George Chinnery (1774-1852), and Francois Balthazar Solvyns (1760-1824). Solvyns, one may note, was a Flemish artist who arrived in Calcutta in 1791; he made a series of drawings of local inhabitants and in 1799 officially published as ‘A Collection of Two Hundred and Fifty Coloured Etchings Descriptive of the Manners, Customs and Dresses of the Hindoos’. According to the catalogue entry, Solvyns had decided to return to Europe in 1803. His dramatic journey saw him captured by the French, mistaken as an Englishman, imprisoned in Mauritius, and shipwrecked off the Spanish coast before eventually reaching Paris in 1804. Miraculously, Solvyns managed to save his collection of original drawings which are now in the V&A. The second section of the exhibition ‘The Amateur Artist’, has a set of not very distinguished works. There are some noteworthy exceptions like the oil painting by Chales DOyly, ‘Lalita Ghat on the Ganges at Benares’ (about 1840). The section ‘Romanticism in India’ is also a mixed bag. Renowned painter William Carpenter (1818-99) is the leading artist here and some of his portraits and street scenes draw attention. The section also has some eye-catching watercolours by William Simpson (1823-1899) featuring mountain ranges and Buddhist sites. ‘A woman holding a fish on her head, Bombay’ (watercolour / 1872) by John Griffiths and ‘Filling the gunni-bag with cotton, Khamgaum’ (pencil, pen and ink with wash) by John Lockwood Kipling are among the interesting works in the section on realistic paintings. Kipling (1837 1911) and Griffiths (1838 1918), one may recall, taught in Bombay and encouraged their students to particularly study and depict local people and scenes in a realistic manner. The not-to-be-missed exhibition will be open till May 23 (Closed on Mondays).