East India Company

Examples of East India Company in the following topics:

• Indian Painting under British Imperialism

  • Under British Imperialism, painting in India took on many western characteristics throughout the 18th and 19th centuries.
  • The Company style of paintings became common, created by Indian artists working for European patrons of the East India Company.
  • The merchants of the East India Company provided a large market for native art in the 18th century, and a distinct genre of watercolor painting developed that depicted scenes of everyday life, regalia of princely courts, and Indian festivities and rituals.
  • Referred to as the Company style or Patna style, this style of painting flourished at first in Murshidabad and spread to other cities of British India.
  • The best known painting by Tagore is Bharat Mata ("Mother India"), depicting a young woman with four arms in the manner of Hindu deities, holding objects symbolic of India's national aspirations.

• Indian Architecture under British Imperialism

  • The establishment of the British Empire in the 18th century laid the foundation for modern India's contact with the West.
  • The Company style of paintings, for example, became common, created by Indian artists working for European patrons of the East India Company.
  • By 1858, the British government took over the task of administration of India under the British Raj.
  • The building is circular in form and is sided by two rectangular sections; the entrance is lined with 12 colonnades and two British lions, with the motto of East India Company engraved on them.
  • Andrew's Church in present day Chennai is an example of British colonial architecture in India.

• Hindu Rajput Kingdoms

  • The Rajputs were patrilineal clans, ruling a majority of Hindu princely states in northern India between the 6th and 20th centuries.
  • From the beginning of the 9th century, these Rajput dynasties dominated many parts of northern India.
  • The Rajputs of Mewar were defeated by the Mughal emperor Babur in 1527 CE when he was in the process of establishing Mughal rule in India.
  • At the end of the Third Anglo-Maratha War (1817-1818) between the Maratha Confederacy and the English East India Company, all the Rajput states in Rajasthan entered into a subsidiary alliance with the Company and became princely states under the British Raj.
  • Through their many centuries of rule in northern India, the Rajputs built spectacular forts and palaces .

• Mughal Empire

  • Ousted from his lands in Central Asia, he turned his attention to the fertile lands of the Delhi Sultanate in northern India.
  • From his base in Kabul, which he conquered in 1504, he gradually captured more territory farther east.
  • He also opened relations with the British East India Company.
  • He was a notable expansionist, and the Mughal Empire reached its greatest territorial extent under Aurangzeb and included almost all of present-day India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, and most of Afghanistan.
  • The Urdu language is another contribution, which continues to be the national language of Pakistan and a co-official language in India.

• Buddhist Wall Paintings

  • The period of Gupta rule is known as the Golden Age of India, as it was a time marked by unprecedented prosperity and the flourishing of the arts and sciences in India.
  • In particular, Gupta period Buddhist art was quite influential in most of East and Southeast Asia.
  • Though the Huns were eventually driven out of India, the Gupta Empire would never recover.
  • Islamic invasions in India began as early as the 8th century, and by the early 12th century, almost all of northern India had been conquered.
  • The Hindu kingdoms of medieval India fell easily to the Islamic invaders, and soon the majority of India was under varying degrees of Islamic control.

• Architecture in the Vijayanagar Empire

  • The Vijayanagar Empire ruled in South India from 1336 until 1646 and left a lasting legacy of architecture, sculpture, and painting.
  • The Vijayanagar Empire was a Hindu empire based in the Deccan plateau region of South India.
  • The empire's patronage enabled its fine arts and literature to rise to new heights, and its legacy of sculpture, painting, and architecture influenced the development of the arts in South India long after the empire came to an end.
  • There were great innovations in Hindu temple construction during this period, and many diverse temple building traditions and styles in South India came together in the Vijayanagar style of architecture, the finest examples of which are to be found in the capital Hampi.
  • Most of the palaces faced east or north and stood within compounds surrounded by high, tapering stone and earth walls.

• Gupta and Post-Gupta

  • The period of Gupta rule is known as the Golden Age of India, as it was a time marked by unprecedented prosperity and the flourishing of the arts and sciences in India.
  • In particular, Gupta period Buddhist art was quite influential in most of East and Southeast Asia.
  • In the year 480 CE, the Huns launched an invasion of India.
  • Though the Huns were eventually driven out of India, the Gupta Empire would never recover.
  • However, the Gupta Empire and the Golden Age of India would not be forgotten.

• Liquid Media

  • The India ink used in ancient India since at least the 4th century BC was called masi, and was made of burnt bones, tar, pitch, and other substances.
  • The practice of writing with ink and a sharp pointed needle was common in early South india.
  • Several Buddhist and Jain sutras in India were compiled in ink.
  • The ink brush is the traditional writing implement in East Asian calligraphy.
  • The reed pen has almost disappeared but it is still used by young school students in some parts of India and Pakistan, who learn to write with them on small timber boards known as "Takhti".

• Iconic Buddhist Sculpture and Painting

  • Anthropomorphic representations of the Buddha began to emerge in the 1st century CE in Northern India.
  • Buddhist art continued to develop in India through the 4th and 6th centuries CE.
  • By the 10th century, the creation of new Buddhist art in India was waning, and by the 12th century it had largely disappeared due to the expansion of Islam.
  • By the end of the 12th century, Buddhism in India remained only in select regions of the country.
  • It continued, however, to expand through the Himalayan kingdoms and in East and Southeast Asia.

• The East

  • The name Mughal is derived from the original homelands of the Timurids, the Central Asian steppes once conquered by Genghis Khan and hence known as Moghulistan, "Land of Mongols. " Although early Mughals spoke the Chagatai language and maintained some Turko-Mongol practices, they became essentially Persianized and transferred the Persian literary and high culture to India, thus forming the base for the Indo-Persian culture and the spread of Islam in South Asia.
  • Copies of this were illustrated by his descendants, Akbar in particular, with many portraits of the numerous new animals Babur encountered when he invaded India, which are carefully described.
  • Spectacular edifices erected by Timur and his successors helped to disseminate the influence of the Ilkhanid school of art in India, thus giving rise to the celebrated Mughal school of architecture.