‘Sahaj Path’ was first published in 1930 as a collaborative initiative by Rabindranath Tagore and Nandalal Bose – its first volume focusing on alphabet lessons, illustrated with short and simple rhyming sentences. The printed images accompanying the rhymes are linocuts, fashioned to reveal the minimal contours of the figures. The older books were made with clear lines, so slightly older students could fill them with colours, and spoke about everyday life in Bengal.

From 1769, travelling European artists began arriving on Indian shores and started using new technologies like lithography to produce prints of the landscapes they painted. These images became some of the earliest documentation of the colonies and because they were prints, it was possible for them to be circulated far and wide. Many of these artists subscribed to the cult of ‘picturesque’, then in vogue in Europe and much of their clientele were curious about the East and the ‘exotic East’ was emerging. The first notable landscape artist to arrive in India was William Hodges in 1780. For the next three years he travelled the length and breadth of the country and produced a large number of sketches which he printed using techniques like metal engraving and etching. Between 1785-88 he published a series of forty-eight aquatints titled Select Views in India. Hodges’ landscapes, unlike the uncle and nephew duo Thomas and William Daniell, were less realistic in nature, carrying an air of shock and unrest created by the stark contrast of light and shade.

Techniques of producing coloured prints led to a further demand for printed pictures. Artists like Raja Ravi Varma were trained in the European academic style of painting. He tapped into the popular demand for printed pictures of gods and goddesses and sought to reform the garishly coloured prints emerging from contemporary studios by developing a more refined, naturalistic iconography of religious and mythological scenes. Ravi Verma’s contribution was so enduring that figurations he created for myths and epics continue to inform our popular imagination of gods and goddesses today.

A highly controversial lithograph, Bharat Bhiksha (India begging) represented the British notion of their civilising race’s beneficence to a subservient nation like India. The image brings together three figures, symbolically standing in for three generations, positioned according to age. The old lady hands over the responsibility of the child to a youthful, resplendently attired woman. Politically, the old woman, as well as the child, represent India and the youthful woman is Britain, her youth signalling how British patronage over an ancient, exhausted country would provide for a bountiful future.

The Ramayana is one of the two major Sanskrit epics from ancient India. The embedded narrative of the epic has lent itself to myriad (visual) interpretations and reimaginations for centuries. This pat—traditional artworks from eastern India known for their intricate details and depictions of myths and legends—shows Hanuman, the monkey-god and devotee of Rama, the epic’s divine protagonist, in a warring embrace with Ravana, the epic’s ten-headed demon who was also the ruler of what is now Sri Lanka. Ravana is described in literature as being twenty-armed, but it is uncertain whether this change was intentional or a mistake at the hands of the engraver.

The 19th century woodcut prints of Calcutta were popularly called Bat-tala prints, which were produced in the Black Town area of the city and were usually purchased by the layman who thronged the suburbs. Bat-tala means ‘under the banyan tree’ due to the area of north Calcutta where this indigenous school of printmaking developed. By the late 19th century, Bat-tala prints were being made by art school graduates trained in British academic art traditions. They started featuring still, doll-like figures with exaggerated facial features and physical gestures – reminiscent of the Bengal terracotta or wooden dolls, but they are dressed in the North Indian ghaghra seen in Rajasthani miniatures rather than the sari worn in Bengal – this attire would be richly adorned with architectural details in the background, much like he miniature tradition. The babu or ‘nayak’, as seen here is wearing English pump shoes – both him and the ‘nayika’ are sitting on European furniture – him strumming an Indian stringed instrument and her, smoking a hookah. It is very akin to the picture of a European couple, in the exact same setting but with a liquor bottle and glass in the hands of the gentleman and a violin in the hands of the lady.