This style of painting depicted India as a quaint land, to be explored by travelling British artists; its landscape was rugged and wild, seemingly untamed by human hands.

A mural is any piece of artwork painted or applied directly on a wall, ceiling or other large permanent surface. This form of art was used from upper paleolithic time to modern time.
King like Tipu Sultan continued to encourage local traditions and had the walls of his palace at Seringapatam covered with mural paintings done by the local artists. One of these mural paintings celebrates the victory of Tipu and Haidar Ali in the Battle of Polilur (1780) in which they defeated the British troops.

The rich and powerful people, both British and Indian, wanted to see themselves on canvas.
Indian tradition of portrait painting was in form of miniature (very small detailed painting) at that time.
A stream of European portrait painters came to India in the 18th century. They made portraits that were life-size images that looked lifelike and real.

By the late 19th century, mechanical printing presses were set-up in different parts of India which allowed prints to be produced in even larger numbers.
Popular pictures of Hindu deities printed in large numbers, so that even the poor could buy them. With the spread of nationalism, popular prints of Bharat Mata or nationalist heroes of the freedom movement became popular.
Ravi Varma set-up printing press where his religious paintings were mass produced. These prints carried nationalist messages and influenced large number of people and created nationalistic fervour.

The scroll painters and potters came to Kalighat and settled there because at that time Calcutta was expanding as a commercial and administrative centre. Calcutta appeared as a place of opportunity where people came to make a new livelihood for them.
Village artists also came and settled here in the hope of new patrons and buyers. They began to paint new themes because values, tastes, social norms and customs were undergoing fast changes after the 1840s. Kalighat painters responded to these changes and produced paintings on social and political themes.

(i) In Calcutta, most of the buildings built by British had rounded arches and pillars. This style was borrowed from the Classical style of Greece and Rome.
(ii) Pointed arches in the buildings and elongated structures are the typical characteristics of Gothic style.
(iii) The British wanted their buildings to express their power and glory and their cultural achievements.
(iv)Victoria Terminus in Bombay is built in Gothic style.

In Bengal, around the pilgrimage centre of the temple of Kalighat, a new style of paintings known as Kalighat painting was developed by local village scroll painters and potters.
Its main characteristics were:
(i) The images of the Kalighat paintings did not appear to be realistic and lifelike.
(ii) These images rallied around religious themes and the artist used shading effect in order to give three-dimensional effect.
(iii) The Kalighat painters used a bold non-realistic style in which figures emerged as large and powerful.
(iv) These paintings had minimum of lines, details and colours.

David Wilkie was commissioned by General Baird's wife to paint the triumph at Seringapatam, where Tipu Sultan was finally defeated by the British troops. In this painting General Baird is standing triumphantly in the middle. Tipu lies dead in semi-darkness.
His army was defeated, his royal clothes torn and stripped off. Mrs Baird exactly wanted this to show that the kings who opposed the British Shall meet the same fate like Tipu Sultan.

(i) In these two pictures. Indians are depicted as inferior and submissive. In both these paintings. Indians are shown as maid and servants who work for their white masters.
(ii) The Britishers are flaunting their costly and regal dresses. By wearing expensive dresses, they want to convey their supremacy, aristocracy to us.