An Empire of Images: Visual Culture and the British in India, 1688–1815

Apurba Chatterjee

doi:10.1017/9781009567190

How did Britons come to see themselves as fit to govern India? An Empire of Images focuses on the visual arts as central to the making of political legitimacy during the long eighteenth century. Through images by both British and Indian artists, this book explores how peoples, landscapes, flora, and fauna in India became part of an imperial self-image. Torn between open triumphalism and anxious contingency, British artists and patrons sought to dissect India's mysteries and justify East India Company rule under the Crown. Meanwhile, Indian artists interpreted the realities of British hegemony in terms of both their native cultural resources and modes introduced by the colonizer. Tracing an emerging imperial ideology on canvas and in prints, as well as the pages of official archives and personal papers, this book offers new insights into reconfigurations of power in a period of European expansion in Asia. As Chatterjee argues, early colonial India became a site for contestation around British visual ascendancy, which must complicate our own understandings of honour, guilt, knowledge, and belonging.

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An Empire of Images

Visual Culture and the British in India, 1688–1815

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Contents

Frontmatter
pp i-vi

Dedication
pp vii-viii

Contents
pp ix-x

List of Figures
pp xi-xvi

Acknowledgements
pp xvii-xx

List of Abbreviations
pp xxi-xxii

Introduction
pp 1-38

1 - Imaging ‘Empire’ before ‘Empire’
pp 39-75

2 - A Design of Authority
pp 76-154

3 - Places and Spaces of Power
pp 155-217

4 - Commanding Nature
pp 218-282

Conclusion
pp 283-292

Bibliography
pp 293-343

Index
pp 344-361

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An Empire of Images

Visual Culture and the British in India, 1688–1815

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