Study Guide · Chapter 4
Company School Painting (18th–19th century)
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- A hybrid style that developed under British colonial patronage from the mid-18th century, in which Indian artists (many trained in earlier Mughal/Rajput traditions) adapted their technique to European tastes, subjects, and materials (using watercolour on paper, European-style perspective and shading) — commissioned largely by British East India Company officials as documentary records of Indian flora, fauna, occupations, monuments, and social "types."
- Major centres: Calcutta, Delhi, Patna, Murshidabad, Tanjore, Lucknow.
- Notable examples include natural history studies and the so-called "Patna Kalam" (Patna school), which developed a distinctive, fluid, minimal-background style depicting everyday Indian life and occupations.
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