Continuing in my intermittent series on visual contextualization in India, I want to give an overview on the Bengal Renaissance and its influence on 20th century Indian Christian artists.
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Orientalist official of the
East India Company (circa 1760) |
After the decline of the Mugal Empire in the mid-17th century, India came under the rule of various regional leaders called rajas. About a century later, the privately-funded British East India Company took control over large areas of India, exporting cotton, silk, indigo dye, salt, saltpetre, tea and opium to Britain and Europe. It eventually ruled over "India with its own private army, exercising military power and assuming administrative functions... In the modern era, its history is strongly associated with corporate abuse, colonialism, exploitation, and monopoly power." It was absorbed into the British government's direct control in 1874.
