Oriental Scenery – Yesterday and Today

Oriental Scenery – Yesterday and Today was organized at Indira Gandhi National Centre for the Arts during 2011; in collaboration with the Victoria Memorial Hall, Kolkata and the Italian Embassy Cultural Centre. The exhibition presented 73 aquatints made at the end of 18^th century juxtaposed with the photographs of the same sites from the same vantage view, taken 200 years later, at the end of the 20^th Century. The former were done by Thomas and William Daniell and the latter by renowned photographer Antonio Martinelli.

The Daniells, uncle and nephew, spent nine years traversing India, drawing and recording views and sites meticulously. On their return to London in 1794 they set about to produce one of the finest, most ambitious, and most influential series of aquatints: Oriental Scenery. The Daniells used camera obscura which ensured an unrivalled accuracy in addition to their classical style of composition. The success of the Daniells aquatints could be judged by comparing them with the surviving paper originals. They reveal only the minutest variations in tone and texture, virtually none in composition, form or detail. Such aquatints could only had been produced by accurately tracing the water colours onto the waxed plates, an operation so slow and arduous that two or even three weeks must had been spent on a single plate. The number of prints that the Daniell produced from each plate is unknown, though it may have been as many as 250, judging from the records of known orders. While Daniells were evidently inspired by those in Hodge’s Select Views, the aquatints that they produced far exceeded their predecessor’s forty-eights prints. The aquatints production took up to thirteen years of theirs, in what was surely the most challenging printing project undertaken in England at the time.

The Oriental Scenery collection made a completely new contribution to British knowledge of Indian cultural and natural heritage and also influenced European Decorative arts. In addition to the views made by early Europeans travelers, Daniells first time, made on the spot views of Garhwal Mountains, and Madras. The Daniells tapped a vein of nostalgia among colonial administrators, curiosity among European travelers, and pride among the British for victorious military campaigns there.

Influenced by the Daniells, two hundred years later, Antonio Martinelli (an Italian Photographer and Indophile) travelled across the country and successfully captured the places and sites once visualized and painted by the Daniells. His photographs together with the 73 original aquatints were displayed in the exhibition. Mr. Martinelli had made a significant contribution through his photos survey. His survey has served a sobering reminder of the fragility of our cultural and natural heritage sites.

The artworks in the exhibition were arranged in geographical sequence, roughly corresponding to the itineraries of the Daniells as they travelled through India. This exhibition presented a selection of 73 aquatints and 73 photographs from the Victoria Memorial Hall, Kolkata collection. The exhibition traced the changes that the passage of time had brought on Indian architectural masterpieces and natural wonders, this exhibition drew attention to universal concepts of architectural heritage and environmental conservation. This unique combination of visual materials provided a timeless graphic account of two hundred years of Indian history. The descriptions and contrast envisaged in this exhibition, provided a notice to all those who care for conservation of cultural property. This exhibition was also under patronage of UNESCO.