Indian Painting under the Mughals, A.D. 1550 to A.D. 1750 c21.33

c21.33

of a degraded art were produced. Among these were feeble imitations of Western pictures, as well as many other still more incongruous compositions so degenerate as not to merit the name of art, a state of affairs which continued with few exceptions throughout the eighteenth century. In 1772 there arrived in India probably the first English painter after Hatfield, the adventurous ‘limner’ whose experience at the court of Jahangir has already been recounted. His name was Tilly Kettle and he remained four years in Calcutta, but does not appear to have penetrated any farther into the country. He was followed by Hodges, Zoffany, Longcroft, and Home, all of whom came to India towards the end of the eighteenth century and practised their art in several of the larger cities. With their arrival the Western form of painting, which has been gradually gaining ground in India all these years, received a decided impetus, so much so that a considerable number of Indian artists began to copy the methods of the Europeans. They began to produce large oil paintings on canvas, generally uninspiring portraits of Indian noblemen, many of which may be seen in Oude, Southern India, and Bengal, to this day. None of these is of any merit, but they plainly show that the country was deserting its own artistic traditions, and that Indian painting had become merely a stagnant reflection of that of the West.