How English artists depicted India as exotic land ripe for colonial rule

In 1825, English artist George Chinnery left Calcutta for Macau, chased away by his disgruntled wife Marianne and his creditors. He’d been based in India for the past 23 years, having previously lived in Hyderabad and Dacca.

Besides running a debt of around Rs 30,000 (£232 today), Chinnery was, according to one Dictionary of National Biography, a “penniless fornicator” and “begetter of an uncertain number of illegitimate Chinnerys white, brown and yellow”.

While he became famous as a portraitist, Indian landscapes also take pride of place in Chinnery’s legacy. His vision of an early morning in the Bengal countryside projects an image of peace and harmony far removed from the realities of colonial India under the British Empire.

From the 1760s, a number of British artists arrived in India. These men were motivated both by the economic prospects of catering to expatriate communities and portraying unique subject matter for those back home. In so doing, these artists presented India not as it was, but remade it into an exotic land ripe for colonial rule.

In their artistic representations, India was dangerous but also a place of opportunities. Travelling across provinces, artists’ visual documentation helped claim and appropriate Indian landscapes. As these spaces were endowed with new meanings, in turn, the question...

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