ADDITIONAL QUESTIONS :
I. Answer the following questions in one sentence each :
1. What does painting of mural depict ?
Ans: This painting celebrates the famous battle of Palilur of 1780 in which Tipu and Haider Ali defeated the English troops .
2. How were Kalighat pictures printed ?
Ans: The images were engraved in wooden blocks . The carved block was linked, pressed against paper, and then the woodcut prints that were produced were coloured by hand.
3. What did the pictures on calendar depict ?
Ans: The calendar began carrying nationalist messages.Bharat Mata appeared as a goddess carrying the national flag, or nationalist heroes sacrificing their head to the mata and god and goddess slaughtering the British .
4. How did Okakura Kakuzo work towards an Asian art movement ?
Ans: Okakura Kakuzo published a book in Japan called “The ideas of the East”. This book is famous for its opening lines “Asia is one”
5. Where did Francis Hayman display a history painting ?
Ans: Francis Hayman displays a history painting in the Vauxhall Gardens in London.
6. Who became the Nawab of Murshidabad after the defeat of Sirajuddaulah ?
Ans: Mir Jaffar became the Nawab of Murshidabad after the defeat of Sirajuddaulah .
7. Who was the most powerful enemy of the British in South India ?
Ans: Tipu Sultan was the most powerful enemy of the British in South India .
8. What encouraged local miniature artists to absorb the tastes and artistic styles of the British ?
Ans: The court at Murshidabad encouraged local miniature artists to absorb the tastes and artistic styles of the British .
9. Who produced images of gods and goddesses before the 19th century ?
Ans: The village patuas and kumors produced images of gods and goddesses .
10. Which paintings came to be known as company paintings ?
Ans: The pictures collected by the East India company officials came to be known as company paintings .
11. What pictures did Calcutta studio produce ?
Ans: The Calcutta Art studio produced life like eminent Bengali personalities and mythological pictures .
12. Who tried to master the western art of oil painting and realistic life study ?
Ans: Raja Ravi Varma tried to mastered the western art of oil painting and realistic life study .
13. Who rejected the art of Ravi Varma as initiative in Bengal ?
Ans: In Bengal, a new group of nationalist’s artist gathered around Abinindranath Tagore and rejected the art of Ravi Varma .
II. Answer the following questions in about three sentences :
1. What did colonial rule introduced ?
Ans: Colonial rule introduced several new art forms,styles,materials and techniques,etc. These were creatively adapted by Indian artists for local patrons and markets, in both elite and popular circles .
2. How did European artists help to shape western perceptions of India ?
Ans: i) From the eighteenth century a stream of European artists came to India along with the British traders and rulers. The artist brought with them new styles and new conventions of painting
ii) They began producing pictures which became widely popular in Europe and helped shape western perceptions of India .
iii) European artists brought with them the idea of realism. This was the belief that artists had to observe carefully and depict faithfully what the eye saw .
3. What does the painting of European artists inspire ?
Ans: i) European artists in India were inspired by the same thing that is images that looked real.
ii) The subject they painted were varied but invariably they seemed to emphasize the superiority of Britain its culture, its people, its power .
4. What was picturesque landscape painting ?
Ans: This style of painting depicted India’s as a quaint land, to be explored by travelling British artists, its landscape was rugged and wild, seemingly untamed by human needs. Thomas Daniel and his nephew William Daniel were the most famous of the artists who painted within this tradition. They produced some of the exotic picturesque landscapes of Britain’s newly conquered territories in India. Their large oil paintings on canvas were regularly exhibited to select audiences in Britain.
5. How was British rule bringing modern civilisation in India ?
Ans: The picturesque landscape painted by Daniel shows the ruins of local buildings that were once grand. The buildings are reminders of past glory, remains of an ancient civilisation that was now in ruins. In paintings of Daniel we can see new Calcutta, with wide avenues, majestic European style buildings, and new modes of transport. The painting seeks to represent the traditional life of India as pre-modern, changeless and motionless, showing faqirs,cows,and boats sailing on the river .
6. What was the importance of portrait painting ?
Ans: i) The rich and the powerful, both British and Indian, wanted to see themselves on canvas. Unlike the existing Indian tradition of painting portraits in miniature, colonial portraits were life size images that looked lifelike and real .
ii) The size of the paintings projected the importance of the patrons who commissioned these portraits .
iii) A new style of portraiture also served as an ideal means of displaying the lavish lifestyles, wealth and status that the empire generated .
iv) As portrait painting became popular, many European portrait painters came to India in search of profitable commissions .
7. How were Indian potrayed in paintings ?
Ans: Indians are shown as submissive, as inferior, as serving their white masters, while the British are shown as superior and imperious, they flaunt their clothes, stand regally or sit arrogantly and live a life of luxury. Indians were never at the centre of such paintings, they usually occupy a shadowy background .
8. Why did the Indian Nawabs begin to impose commission imposing oil portraits by European painters ?
Ans: i) The British posted residents in Indian courts began controlling the affairs of the state, under mining the power of king .
ii) Some Nawabs reacted against this interference; others accepted the political and cultural superiority of the British .
iii) They hoped to socialise with the British and adopted their styles and tastes .
9. Write about Muhammad Ali Khan ?
Ans: Muhammad Ali Khan was one such nawab . After a war with the British in the 1770’s he became a dependent pensioner of the east India Company. But the nonetheless commissioned two visiting European artists, Tilly Kettle and George Willison, to paint his portraits, and gifted these paintings to the king of England and the Directors of the East India Company. The nawab had lost political power but the portraits allowed him to look at himself as a royal figure .
10. What did the local miniature artists of Murshibad begin to adopt ?
Ans: i) The court at Murshidabad encouraged local miniature artists to absorb the tastes and artistic styles of the British .
ii) The local miniature artists at Murshidabad began adopting elements of European realism.
iii) They use perspective, which creates a sense of distance between objects that are near and those at a distance .
iv) They use light and shade to make the figures look like an real .
11. Why did the local artist turn to the British ?
Ans: i) With the establishment of British power many of the local courts lost their influence and wealth .
ii) They could no longer support painters and pay them to paint for the court .
12. The pictures collected by East India company officials came to be known company painting. Explain .
Ans: i) The British officials wanted images through which they could understand India, remember their life in India, and depict India to the western world .
ii) So local painters started producing a vast number of images of local plants and animals, historical buildings and monuments, festivals and processions, trade and crafts, castes and communities .
iii) These picture eagerly collected by the East India Company officials came to be known as company paintings .
III. Answer the following questions in about four sentences :
1. Write down about history painting potrayed by painters ?
Ans: i) This tradition sought to recreate various episodes of British imperial history and enjoyed great prestige and popularity during the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries .
ii) Those painters drew on first-hand sketches and accounts of travellers to depict for the British public a favourable image of British actions in India .
iii) These paintings once again celebrated the British power, their victories, their supremacy .
iv) One of the first of these history paintings was produced by Francis Hayman in 1762 and placed on public display in the Vauxhall Gardens in London .
2. What does the painting of Lord Clive and Mir Jafar with his troops depict ?
Ans: The British had just defeated Siraj ud daulah in the famous battle of Plassey and put Mir Jaffar as the Nawab of Murshidabad. It was a victory won through conspiracy, and the traitor Mir Jafar was awarded the title of nawab. In the painting by Hayman this wrong act is not depicted. It shows Lord Clive being welcomed by Mir Jafar and his troops after the battle of Plassey .
3. The celebration of British military triumph can be seen in the many paintings of the battle of Seringapatam. Explain ?
Ans: i) Tipu Sultan of Mysore was one of the most powerful enemies of the British. He was finally defeated in 1799 at the famous battle of Seringapatam.
ii) The painting shows the British troops storming the fort from all sides, cutting Tipu Sultans soldiers into pieces.
iii) They are shown climbing the walls and raising the British flag aloft on the ramparts of Tipu’s fort .
iv) It is a painting full of action and energy .
4. What happened to artists who earlier painted miniatures ? How did the painters at Indian courts react to the new traditions of imperial art ?
Ans: i) In Mysore Tipu Sultan not only fought the British on the battle field but also resisted the cultural traditions associated with them .
ii) He continued to encourage local traditions, and had the walls of his palace at Seringapatam covered with mural paintings done by local artists.
iii) The paintings celebrate that famous battle of Polilur of 1980 which Tipu and Haider Ali defeated the English troops.
5. How was the art form in Bengal in early nineteenth century ?
Ans:
i) In the nineteenth century a new world of popular are developed in many of the cities of India.
ii) In Bengal, around the pilgrimage centre of the temple of Kalighat,local village scroll painters(called patuas) and potters(called kumors in eastern India and Kumhars in North India) began developing a new style of art .
iii) They moved from the surrounding villages into Calcutta in the early nineteenth century.
6. What were the change taking places in Calcutta in Nineteenth century ?
Ans: i) The city was expanding as a commercial and administrative centre .
ii) Colonial offices were coming up, new buildings and roads were built, markets were being established .
iii) The city appeared as a place of opportunity where people could come to make a new living .
iv) Village artists too came and settled in the city in the hope of new patrons and new buyers of their art .
7. What trend did Kalighat artist follow before the nineteenth century ?
Ans: i) Before the nineteenth century, the village patuas and Kumar’s had worked on mythological themes and produced images of god and goddesses .
ii) On shifting to Kalighat, they continued to paint these religious images.
iii) Kalighat painters began to use shading to give them a rounded form, to make the images look three –dimensional.
iv) Kalighat paintings used bold, deliberately non-realistic style, where the figures emerge large and powerful with a minimum of lines, details and colours.
8. What was a new trend in Kalighat painters after 1840’s ?
Ans: i) After the 1840’s we see a new trend within the Kalighat artists. Living in a society where values , tastes, social norms and customs were undergoing rapid changes. Kalighat artist responded to the world around, and produced paintings on social and political themes .
ii) Kalighat painting depict social life under the British rule.
iii) Often the artists mocked at the changes, ridiculing the new tastes of those who spoke in English and adopted western Habits, dressed like sahibs, smoked cigarettes or sat on chairs
iv) They made fun of the westernised baboo, criticised the corrupt priests and warned against women moving out of their homes .
9. Describe art of Raja Ravi Varma ?
Ans: i) Raja Ravi Varma was one of the first artists who tried to create a style that was both modern and national .
ii) Ravi Varma belonged to the family of the Maha rajas of Travancore in Kerala, and was addressed as Raja .
iii) He mastered the western art of oil painting and realistic life study, but painted themes from Indian mythology .
iv) He put on canvas scene after scene from the Ramayana and the Mahabharata, drawing on the theatrical performances of mythological stories that he witnessed during his tour of the Bombay Presidency .
v) Ravi Varma’s mythological painting became the rage among Indian princes and art collectors .
10. What made the new group of nationalist artists break away from the convention of oil painting ?
Ans: i) A new group of nationalist’s artist broke away from the convention of oil paintings and the realistic style and turned for inspiration to medieval Indian traditions of miniature painting and the ancient art of mural painting in the Ajanta caves .
ii) They were also influenced by the art of Japanese artists who visited India at that time to develop an Asian art movement .