Exhibition of Company paintings sheds light on India's ornithological history

Curating the exhibition also entailed placing the works in groups that make sense both scientifically and artistically, he said. He added that he hoped the show would raise awareness about the Company paintings, which is a neglected area of art history, as well as encourage people interested in natural history to visit an art gallery.The exhibition brings together two worlds that are often too far apart, Tillotson said.

An ongoing exhibition at the DAG here features a collection of paintings of Indian birds created by “unknown Indian masters” and commissioned by the East India Company in the late 18th and early 19th centuries.

Curated by Giles Tillotson, the senior VP of Exhibitions and Publications at DAG, the show titled “Birds of India: Company Paintings (1800 to 1835)” has on display 125 paintings of a wide variety of birds including raptors, game birds, coastal waders and many woodland and forest birds, some very familiar and several that are now scarce.

The works largely belong to four different albums — the album of one Cunninghame Graham (1800-1804) featuring a collection of 99 paintings, an album of birds from north-east India (1810) with their exaggeratedly vivid colours, the Faber album (1830) in which the artist’s observations contribute to the ornithological studies expounded in this exhibition, and four folios by Chuni Lal of Patna — the only artist that remains identified – from the never-seen-before 1835 Edward Inge album.

Combining the delicacy and details of Mughal atelier-trained artists with the refinement and rationalisation of European art, the works signify a hybrid Indian art of rare and exceptional beauty, a style unique to the Indian subcontinent whose patronage was almost entirely British. “They were all painted in Calcutta between 1800 and 1835, except for two which are probably from Lucknow in 1780,” Tillotson said.

According to him, the show offers significant insight into the ornithological history of India. “Although obviously there was a long-standing tradition of Indian folklore and literary reference about birds, modern scientific investigation of birds of the world was still in an early phase when these works were made. So the exhibition represents an interaction between Indian birds, Indian artists and early modern global science. ''Most of the birds depicted had only recently been given English names; indeed these and their Latin names were still being decided. All this paves the way for much later developments like the Bombay Natural History Society, (ornithologist and naturalist) Salim Ali, among others,” the curator told PTI.

One of the major challenges of putting together the show, Tillotson said, was identifying the birds, as most of the works, whether painted from memory or life, do not identify them. “The main research was correctly identifying the birds; and placing the works in the history of Company painting. Curating the exhibition also entailed placing the works in groups that make sense both scientifically and artistically,” he said. He added that he hoped the show would raise awareness about the Company paintings, which is ''a neglected area of art history”, as well as encourage people interested in natural history to visit an art gallery.

“The exhibition brings together two worlds that are often too far apart,” Tillotson said. The show is set to continue till October 6.