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Anna Baumann
Sonal Khullar
Art H 312
Feb. 6, 2018

India through the Eyes of the British: A Journey of Imperialistic Control

The British East India Company entered India with Imperial ambitions. They saw

themselves as righteous in ‘civilizing’ this culture. Along the way, many British East India

Company officials came to appreciate and appropriate Indian culture into their own lives abroad.

While the British always saw themselves as superior to Indians, they also marvelled at the

traditions that have arisen out of India. Their imperial ambitions were their main goal, however.

English citizens began adopting Indian customs, but only to a certain extent because a threat to

British ‘purity’ would not be tolerated. The push-pull contrast between appreciating India while,

at the same time, exploiting it lead to an interesting framework of study wherein cultures co-

mingled, both influencing each other, however one culture was at a distinct disadvantage. Out of

this framework arose a type of painting, which both glorified and devalued India, sometimes at

the same time.

Spiridione Roma’s painting of The East Offering its Riches to Britannia from 1778

clearly shows England’s imperial ambitions towards India. It is a neoclassical allegorical

painting depicting female representations of India and China handing their wealth willingly over

to Britain. It was commissioned by the East India Company and was painted on the ceiling of the

Revenue Committee room in the East India House offices in London. Painted by the British, for

the British, this painting sought to justify the invasion of India, with all the moral quandaries and

resource depletions that came along with such an action. Britannia is represented as a virtuous

young maiden, sitting on a rock, with cherubs behind her and a wise river god by her feet. She is

placed above both India and China in the painting, as if these countries’ allegorical
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representations were her citizens, and she their queen. India, China, and two other Asiatic figures

are proceeding towards Britannia to display their wealth. Mercury, the god of mischief, stands on

their side of the painting, ushering the Asian allegories forward. India and China are not reluctant

to hand over their riches. They seem content, as if they knew they were giving their riches into

the more deserving hands of their new rulers. That they do not protest this action shows how

England saw herself in this time. They thought of themselves as gentle parents, guiding India

towards civilization and helping them to flourish. The orient were the lands in Asia which were

fascinating, valuable, new, and just waiting to be discovered, and civilizing them was a part of

the British duties towards them..

This image helped confirm a “solidly British image” maintained by the East India

Company while they were living abroad in a very different culture. The Britannia painting was in

the same room as the painting of Robert Clive receiving the grant of Diwani from the Mughal

king. The ‘safe’ British image of gentle leadership and India’s willing acquiescence was

maintained. These images displaying a carefully modified depiction of India, “presented an

iconographical validation and naturalization of the British colonial enterprise in India.”1 By

drawing comparisons with the Roman Empire through Mercury and the river god, Britain further

justifies it’s colonization. They are another mighty power, come to conquer, who should be

admired for their actions. India was fascinating and valuable, but that fascination also made it

unsafe and made the “British essence” important to preserve.

While clearly an image with imperial overtones, the painting of Britannia, India and

China also conveys a certain amount of reverence and admiration for the countries that the

British were colonizing. The fact that China and India have wealth and beauty to offer means

that at least part of their culture were admired by the British. Tea, porcelain, textiles and, perhaps
1
Richard Davis, 161.
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to a lesser extent, jewels, were all made, crafted by the citizens of the countries which England is

now invading. This being said, it is clear that Britain strongly disapproved of many cultural

aspects which differed widely from their own moral/religious beliefs and felt themselves justified

in taking those aspects which they found of value without properly compensating those from

whom they had taken it. This painting is an example of a British work where certain elements of

Indian culture are cherished, yet their worth does not put India on equal ground with Britain.

Britain still clearly sees herself as more dominant.

As British officials entered India, they adopted certain customs of the land in which they

now lived. Joshua Reynolds painted Captain John Foote in 1765 self-styling as a nabab, a type

of British governor in India. He is dressed in a turban and robes with Indian patterns on them.

His stance is powerful and commanding of authority. To wear such robes willingly, he, as well

as other who did like him, must have appreciated India textiles and patterns. Nawabs were Indian

rulers who acted as governors in different Indian territories. When the British arrived, officials

went to different courts and became “advisors” to kings or rulers, while actually trying to gain

power from the ruler. Eventually, some of these officials became a new class of governors, called

nababs, a position literally appropriated and then changed by the British. Many images of British

officials watching nautches (dances), smoking hookahs, and dressing in native clothing were

created. Britain enjoyed and took part in these aspects of Indian society. The British, in

becoming nababs, transformed and took over the original Indian position and turned it into a

new, colonial occupation. This was part of the wider net of appropriating Indian cultural

traditions and modifying them to suit British needs. This painting would have been viewed both

by Indians and by European settlers in India. It would have hung on a wall, probably in Foote’s

Indian residence, which was a new tradition for India. It shows the appreciation British officials
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had for Indian textiles and customs, but it also shows the appropriation occurring on the side of

the British as they exploited India.

Uneasy tension on both sides ran underneath the surface relations between the two

countries. This is shown well in Tilly Kettle’s painting of Shuja-ud-Daula with sons, General

Barker and Military Officers from 1772 which depicts British East India officials entering the

territory of a king to watch over him, monitor his actions, and slowly take over his power,

turning him into a figurehead. In this image, we see Shuja-ud-Daula greeting General Barker and

gesturing towards his kingdom. His sons are standing behind him, holding on to one another.

They, along with their father, look stressed and nervous, they can sense what is to come and are

limited in their methods of preventing it. England sees Shuja-ud-Daula’s territory as valuable

enough to take over, and they feel they have to right to do so because of their perceived moral

superiority.

This painting was commissioned by Shuja-ud-Daula and painted by a British artist.

Shuja-ud-Daula is not depicted as less than General Barker, but he is also not depicted as more

powerful. Shuja-ud-Daula may have commissioned this piece to show that, just as Britain can

claim some Indian customs and reform them to suit their needs, so can India. We do not know if

this exact scene actually occurred or if it is a construction of a historical event, painted to please

both Shuja-ud-Daula and the British. The painting is a testament to the exchange of artistic

traditions that occurred between the British and the Indians, with Indians commissioning oil

paintings from the British and the British commissioning water colours from Indian artists. This

image would have hung on a wall, a completely new tradition for India, which previously drew

on tapestries or compiled books of paintings. It shows a colonial event, but it also shows how the
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Indian artistic culture is already changing because of British occupation, even in the early years

of colonization.

Many British officials adopted Indian culture to such an extent that they took on

unofficial wives, or Bibis, while in India. They formed multicultural families with mixed race

children. Men would get circumcised to please their Muslim Bibis.2 Many officials, however,

were weary of these changes, and the sense of urgency to maintain a “pure” British society grew.

In 1793, Governor-General Cornwallis put into practice race-conscious policies to exclude

Indians and mixed race children from the governor and military offices. When corruption

occurred in the government, it was blamed on the company’s assumption of Indian political and

social practices.3 England wanted to experience India, but too much exchange would result in

England loosing the assumed moral superiority they used to invade India in the first place. They

wished to change India, but not change themselves. In this, however, they failed; as both

countries were transformed by the Indian occupation, with new artistic styles emerging on both

sides, as is inevitably the case when different cultures interact.

Britain wished to own India. This means that they saw India, or at least certain aspects of

it, as valuable, beautiful and unique, as worthy of spending time, resources and money on. This

can be seen in a variety of landscape paintings that emphasize the wild and exotic beauty of India

and its monuments. Thomas Daniell’s Composition Piece, a Capriccio of Indian Architecture

from 1799 especially highlights this. India was part of the orient, the new, undiscovered land of

riches often marked by classically “foreign” markers such as processions with elephants, banyan

trees, or unusual rock formations. Sure enough, we see a procession in the middle of this

2 Beth Fowkes Tobin, “Accommodating India: Domestic Arrangements in Anglo-Indian Family

Portraiture” in Picturing Imperial Power: Colonial Subjects in Eighteenth Century British
Painting (Durham: Duke University Press, 1999), 120.
3 Beth Fowkes Tobin, 117.
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painting. It is also an example of the picturesque style, a style meant to emphasize the wildness

and unpredictability of nature, and human’s miniscule role in controlling it. The picturesque style

encouraged travel and exploration to discover new landscapes to draw.4 In picturesque paintings,

we see a dark foreground, a monument and some miniscule humans in the middleground, and an

open sky in the background. This painting fits into these criteria almost perfectly. On the left, a

Hindu temple can be seen, a tall building that seems to radiate the gold from the sky. A human

procession with an elephant is occurring directly before the Hindu temple’s facade. Behind a

pond near the back, the Taj Mahal, a great burial structure built for the wife of a Mughal king,

can be seen. This was thought to be the greatest architectural feature to be found in India. This is

not an accurate depiction of India, it is a memory, an imaginative painting. It was painted after

Daniell had already returned home to England. He was imagining those things that were most

memorable on his trip through India. The Taj Mahal is located in northern Indian, while the

Hindu temple is south Indian. On the hills in the background, a Buddhist cave temple from West

India can be seen. This is a painting, which shows all the riches and joys of India in one place,

free for Europeans to gaze upon in England.

England wished to possess the wealth and magnitude of India. They were fascinated with

the cultural traditions and the people. Feeling themselves to be morally superior, they justified

colonizing India in the name of modernization and civilization. While always valuing their own

culture more, the English found India fascinating, beautiful and complex as well. This

contradictory framework led to an interesting collection of paintings which both degrade and

value India.

4G.H.R. Tillotson, “Images of India in British Landscape Painting, c.1780-1880” in Christopher

A. Bayly, ed. The Raj, India and the British, 1600-1947 (London: National Portrait Gallery,
1990), 142.
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List of Illustrations:

Figure 1: Spiridione Roma, The East

Offering its Riches to Britannia, oil on canvas, 1778, allegorical, oval shaped ceiling piece
commissioned by the East India Company for the Revenue Committee room in East India House.

Figure 2: Joshua Reynolds, Captain John Foote (1718-

1768), oil on canvas, 1765.
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Figure 3: Tilly Kettle, Shuja-ud-Daula with sons,

General Barker and Military Officers, Awadh, oil on canvas, 1772.

Figure 4: Thomas Daniell, The Composition

Piece, a Capriccio of Indian Architecture, oil on canvas, 1799.