Abstract: Visual Arts and British Imperialism in India

Shreya Sharma, independent scholar.

Visual Arts and British Imperialism in India

The British Imperialism played an important role in determining the portrayal of India and its inhabitants during the British Colonization. Portraits were a remembrance of lives and times spent in India. It was an impression of its peoples and surroundings which had to be brought back for display and for showing to members of families and friends at home in Britain. This incentive led to portrayal of the inhabitants as rural, uncivilized and illiterate. They were portrayed as a society who had no “proper” system to function which “legitimized” the British Invasion. These were portrayed through paintings and statues that travelled back to Britain for the Great exhibition amongst others. These portrayal of the inhabitants as illiterate propagated the idea that natives of India make excellent servants. These false narratives continued to influence the world. I would like to present a paper that would discuss these themes through examples of various photographs, paintings and maquette that were commissioned by the British officials and families during the British rule in India.

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Conference Programme

Programme 09:00 - 09:15 Welcome and intro Dr Jane Draycott, University of Glasgow 09:15-10:15 Keynote Prof Adrienne Mayor, Stanford University 10:15-11:15 Panel 1: Metamorphosis of Bodies Dr Tanika Koosmen, University of Newcastle, Australia [Dis]Playing Changing Bodies: Metamorphic Greco-Roman Myths as “Display” of Form Dr Ryan Denson, University of Exeter: Pickled Tritons: The Bodily Display of (Divine) Cryptids in the Roman Empire COFFEE BREAK 11:15 – 11:30 11:30 - 12:30 Panel 2: First Impressions/Judgement of Bodies Jasmine Sahu-Hough, PhD candidate - Yale University: “The Sort of Man You All See Me To Be”: Visible Disability and Citizenship in Classical Athens Dr Dan Mills, Georgia Institute of Technology: Physiognomic Disability in Literary, Statuarial, and Numismatic Depictions of Claudius 12:30 - 13:30 Panel 3: Bodies of Servants Dr Anastasia Meintani, Universität Wien: Bodily Display in the Context of the Banquet Shreya Sharma, Independent Scholar: Visual Arts and British Impe...

Call for Papers

An increasing amount of attention has been paid to impairment and disability in classical antiquity in recent years. However, one aspect of the subject that has not received significant attention, despite recent developments in the study of ancient paradoxography (e.g., Kazantzidis 2019; Geus 2018) and ancient collections, collectors, and collecting (e.g., Carpino et al. 2018; Higbie 2017; Thompson 2016; Gahtan and Pegazzano 2015; Rutledge 2012), is the public display of impaired and disabled people. The same applies to extraordinary (in all senses of the word) bodies. Whether those bodies were human, animal, or cryptid, when scholars have acknowledged this phenomenon, the focus has been placed squarely on those individuals responsible for the displaying. For example, the imperial biographer Suetonius uses this as an indicator of virtue or vice in his subjects: Augustus is a good emperor for avoiding bodily display while Tiberius and Domitian are bad emperors for indulging in the pr...

Abstract: Pickled Tritons: The Bodily Display of (Divine) Cryptids in the Roman Empire

Dr Ryan Denson - University of Exeter Pickled Tritons: The Bodily Display of (Divine) Cryptids in the Roman Empire Tritons, the mermen of the antiquity, could be imagined as inhabiting the natural world and as creatures one may even encounter, similar to modern notions of cryptid sightings. Pliny the Elder, for instance, reports that a Triton was seen playing a shell-trumpet in a cave during the reign of Tiberius ( Natural History, 9.4). As with ordinary marine life, their bodies were occasionally found and preserved as physical proof of their supposed existence. Thus, Aelian, in his History of Animals, discusses a Triton corpse on display at Tanagra (13.21), describing how a local man once suffered divine vengeance for profaning its body by cutting off some of the scales. Pausanias, viewing the same corpse a century earlier, presents two starkly different versions of how it came to reside in Tanagra ( Description of Greece , 9.20). He further tells of another Triton t...

Bodies on Display: Human, Animal and Cryptid Bodies from Antiquity to the Present

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