European Image of India Early Images of Colonial India

Studies of Indian landscapes, monuments and antiquarian documentations by Europeans are the only and first records of India as there were no tradition of documentation in India prior to the European colonisation. There is no parallel for the comprehensive body of images produced in colonial India. These documented images (drawings, prints, paintings and in the latter half of the 19th century massive photographic documentations form records of India's dual history-a palimpsest of ancient past and that of massive European colonisation. These records were established by the itinerant European artists and the records follow fixed travel paths through written and visual forms of documents. In the second half of the 19th century After photography was introduced in 1839 and added to the curriculum of the military academy at Addiscombe(Surrey) in 1855. The East India Company considered it to be the most accurate and efficient medium for recording topographical information and Indian ancient monuments, hitherto only done through drawings, prints and watercolours. Photographic survey missions were implemented By the British to cover the entire Indian landscapes, monuments and ethnography. These photographic surveys formed a vast body of archives on India. The British documentation of India and formation of cultural and historical knowledge of India involved four operational modes. The travel mode where image repositories were formed by itinerant European artists in the early phase of colonial rule; the survey mode where British conducted survey campaigns to classify and document Indian antiquities;the museological mode of British creation of colonial institutions and the historiographical mode where British created the popular colonial icons and mythologies.