| Story Text | [{"record_id":"0","storytext":"William Hodges (1744-97) holds a unique position as a pioneer. He reached India in 1780 to start to remedy Europe\u2019s visual ignorance of India and once here, he acquired an illustrious patron, Britain\u2019s first Governor General in India, Warren Hastings, to travel with him. For three years, sometimes with Hastings and sometimes alone, Hodges explored cities and sacred sites throughout northern India, from Calcutta to Agra. Like some of the artists who followed him, once he returned home, Hodges published a series of prints, based on the sketches he had made on the spot, to disseminate his work as widely as possible. The forty-eight aquatints of his Select Views in India, issued in 1785-88, gave European audiences their first real glimpses of Indian architecture and landscape.","storytextauthor":"","initialize":"true"},{"record_id":"1","storytext":"The first major site that Hodges came across and praised was the ruins of the Katra Masjid at Murshidabad in Bengal, which was once a madrasa-cum-mosque. Built by Murshid Quli Khan\u2014an agent of the Mughals\u2014Murshidabad was lavishly adorned with Mughal-style palaces and halls. While the single-aisle plan is characteristic of the Mughal style, features such as the numerous niches on the facades belong to a pre-Mughal Bengali architecture. The squat shape of the domes was an additional feature developing in this region. It is less ornamented and thus stands in contrast to the more \u2018refined buildings developed in Bengal\u2019 by Shah Jahan and Aurangzeb. ","storytextauthor":"","initialize":"true"},{"record_id":"2","storytext":"The palace at Gwalior Fort greatly inspired the early Mughals. Hodges made two views of this fort situated atop a plateau. What the aquatints miss, from their distant view, is the blue-glazed tiled fa\u00e7ade of the palace. However, the circular buttresses with domed chhatris are clearly discernible. The structure is a fine example of Hindu and Islamic forms coalescing, with its use of animal brackets that support the gallery eaves (or chajjas, similar to those at Fatehpur Sikri) and torana motifs. ","storytextauthor":"","initialize":"true"},{"record_id":"3","storytext":"Moving further north, Hodges drew three views of an important seat of power, Jaunpur. The bridge at Jaunpur is a rare specimen that has withstood the test of time and continues to be in use today. It was built over the Gumti by a loyal noble of Akbar\u2019s, Munim Khan, who was instrumental in expanding territories in the east. Consisting of ten arched openings supported by pylons, with chhatris lining the tops on either side, the bridge is a significant Mughal structure of the region. In addition, the Jaunpur Fort view is supplemented by notes on the history of its initial construction by Feroz Shah Tughluq in 1102 C.E. and then it serving as the residence of the Nawab of Awadh. ","storytextauthor":"","initialize":"true"},{"record_id":"4","storytext":"In Uttar Pradesh again, the gate at Chunar Garh leading to the dargah of Shaikh Qasim Qadiri attracted quite a few British travellers and artists. Hodges described it erroneously as a mosque but praised the lavish gate that perfectly balances what he thought was a proportionally small entrance arch and soaring pishtaq. He believed that the entire fa\u00e7ade covered with superb carving was one of the best examples of Mughal carving in all eastern India\u2019. ","storytextauthor":"","initialize":"true"},{"record_id":"5","storytext":"During his second excursion, at Ghazipur, on the eastern shore of the Ganges, he admired the dilapidated palace and the tombs built by Faiz Ali Khan, a zamindar who came after Nawab Shuja ud daulah. These structures belong to the later Nawabi aesthetic that consisted of bulbous domes, vaulted halls, and the use of stucco\u2014features that were being absorbed into mid-eighteenth-century architecture. ","storytextauthor":"","initialize":"true"},{"record_id":"6","storytext":"While visiting Benares, Hodges noticed a considerable number of \u2018Hindoo\u2019 and \u2018Mohammedan\u2019 buildings, \u2018ruins\u2019 as he labelled the former, attributing their destruction to the wrath and zealotry of Aurangzeb. He cast the city structures as \u2018ancient\u2019 but only the city was old; the buildings and ghats were contemporary to his time. The letterpress correctly notes that the mosque in his aquatint view of the city was of the same height as the destroyed temple of Vishweshwar. It is here that he compared a part of a pillar to a Grecian scroll and then made a sketch of the Vishweshwar temple. This was the inception of his thesis on architecture titled the Dissertation on the Prototypes of Architecture: Hindoo, Moorish and Gothic.","storytextauthor":"","initialize":"true"},{"record_id":"7","storytext":"Established in the early seventeenth century, Chinsura was the major Dutch possession in Bengal until it was ceded to the British in 1825. The Dutch presented a formidable and sometimes ruthless threat to the British in the early phases of the spice trade, but by the close of the eighteenth century the Dutch East India Company no longer offered serious competition in India, unlike the French in the south. Hodges passed through the settlement when travelling by river with Warren Hastings and his retinue in July 1781. \u2018This town is very distinguishable at a considerable distance,\u2019 he later recalled, \u2018and has a handsome appearance. It contains several good houses, and a church, with a little mole projecting into the river\u2019. ","storytextauthor":"","initialize":"true"},{"record_id":"8","storytext":"The peak of Hodges\u2019s admiration for Indian architecture is evident at Agra and Sikandra where he spent three weeks. He was stumped by the Taj Mahal\u2019s excellent workmanship \u2018which is only surpassed by its grandeur, extent and general magnificence\u2019, and admitted to never having experienced such an effect from any work of art.","storytextauthor":"","initialize":"true"}] |
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| Art Artist Names Single | William Hodges |
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