An Englishwoman who sketched India before photography took hold | Hacker News Reader

An Englishwoman who sketched India before photography took hold

bbc.com

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Besides the sketches, she has written extensively about Indian rulers at the time (e.g. Ranjit Singh). If you found this interesting, you would love the Empire Podcast... I believe they talk about Emily in the episode on Afghanistan (https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/79-invading-afghanista...); Dalrymple's book on the subject (Return of a King, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Return_of_a_King) is also a masterfully well researched, delightful read.

William Dalrymple's books are great reads. Makes reading history enjoyable. Highly recommend all his books, particularly his most recent 'The Golden Road'

Reading that one now. I finished The Anarchy before that and it was a great intro to the 18th century and how it made the ground fertile for upcoming colonial period.

I read it and it changed my view of the colonisation of India, the way the book portrayed it the place was basically a slaughterhouse until the Pax Britannica was imposed. I'm not saying the British were perfect but it seems a lot better than being raped or hacked to pieces depending on your gender by the army of the despot in the state next to yours at a moment's notice.

+1 to Empire Podcast. They have excellent series on a bunch of empires (well researched with references). Its one of those light, informative, non-boring podcasts: - The British Empire & The Raj - The Ottoman Empire - The Russian Empire - The United States as an Empire etc

Great podcasts. Also gives you more of an idea why empires started existing. Basically keep the lights on at home at the price of somewhere else going dark. Empire is a life support mechanism for civilization, because when the exponential of life runs out on the linear of physics, social machinery is needed to be more than a riotous blob of ever-warring starving people.

Basically a civilization scale heat-pump, similar to a central state, but over several countries. Which makes rebellion against the empire - a not so noble act, once things actually get scarce- decomplexification prevents the opening up of empire subsidized discovery of new energy sources. At the same time, empires can be unproductive, basically rentseeking and abandoning the purpose the heatpump originally was build for.

Of course to the post colonialists, the existence of any heat pump is pure evil. And for the individual it is. But then again this ignores that the situation is evil. If the selfish drive to have all the offspring, maxes out the ressources, dissolves all the institutions and decomplexifies all things, a empire structure is needed to build a weather-satellite rocket from the food of to many peasants. Its horrifying, and was not necessary in recent memory due to the surplus productivity of capitalism. But if you decomplexify the beast that allows you to only have good situations - you restore the need to create the beast that handles only

I'm very not much for anti-intelleciualism, but this reads terribly. Maybe being used to this kind of metaphor rich language comes with the territory, which I'm unfamiliar with.

I think it's a bit rude to claim India has gone dark. It seems like a pretty vibrant economy.

Its a electric lighting metaphor - on a world that abandons free trade and goes zero-sum. Take it literal to not deal with the given arguments, the reality depicted does not go away.

PS: If india rises similar to china- the dependence on trade rises- otherwise - they would have outposts similar to the chinese in africa all of a sudden. The situations and dilemas depicted are universal, thus any country given the societal equipment (culture) can bump into them.

All empires were not created equal!

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emily_Eden

> Her book, Portraits of the Princes and People of India, was published in 1844. It contained 24 lithographs that were drawn from her sketches of important Indian subjects such as Dost Mahomed Khan and Ranjit Singh.

https://www.rct.uk/collection/1070252/portraits-of-the-princ...

https://archive.org/details/Eden30538

Several of the pictures looked like lithographs. I wonder what the originals looked like. Though the “watercolor” of the deck of the ship appears original (maybe).

The English those days had some raw skills and strength. Jim Corbett traveled from Englad on a request to hunt a tiger, camped in the forest on a tree in the nights to deal with the beast. CP Brown studied Telugu and South Indian languages in a high detail. So many other Emglish men impacted India in many ways - irrigation, engineering and adminitrative framework etc. Second world War changed the course.

Also - James Prinsep - decoded the ancient Brahmi script, unlocking a lot of Indian history.

And as an English person, it pains me but I should mention a lot of the Empire was run by random Scots people as well. They should share the credit/blame.

The Irish too… though they were given things like prisons.

Scots legacy of the empire can still be seen in the bank HSBC. Unfortunately, history sort of forgets that the Scots were involved in some of the more egregious aspects such as slavery and opium.

(Studied British Empire/Indian History)

I like to think WW1 and WW2 was the collective suicide of the West, at least in Europe. So much power lost, both in terms of empire and people, impossible to ever recover. I guess from my learning, it was inevitable, there was no other path where they could have not killed each other and blown up their empires. Alas.

Sorry rethinking this was a very insensitive way to put things. Too late to edit or delete. But it is a complete human tragedy that set the stage for generational trauma like no point before in human history due to rapid industrialization among other things.

Amazing work and historical artifacts.

Something about this era - I have an interest in Frederick Catherwood and his work at basically the same time in mesoamerica (although he focused more on ruins than modern people), https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frederick_Catherwood

If you like this, check out the amazing works of Edwin Lord Weeks https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edwin_Lord_Weeks

Wow, you're right. His paintings are amazing!

Looked like an entirely different world!

It honestly still looks like this. The afghans look the same, the Sikhs still dress this way.

I think it looks like I'm only seeing rich individuals of the times are there more sketches of other classes as well?

Isn't this usually what happens? More depictions, records, stories and possessions of rich people end up surviving long term.

Which is why I think it's important that if one is a creator, author, artist, photo/videographer, etc, that they also log the mundane, the common.

My grandfather was a hobby photographer, he'd go out during e.g. local (traditional) events like "ring running" [0] (note that this was in the mid-1900s, not the 1500s from the linked article) and make photos / videos about it. A lot of his stuff is now archived at the local history museum.

(also note that this was very much a small village on the far side of the country (NL), while it was spared the worst of the war it also lagged a bit in development)

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Running_at_the_ring

Considering who is on today's magazines, this is not surprising.

There are a few more images omitted from the BBC article in her actual works: https://archive.org/details/Eden30538/page/n5/mode/2up

Rich and/or employed by rich people.

I love it, the English can be there to exploit India and enslave its people but we treat their work as art. If it was anyone else like the Ottomans, we would treat it as barbarianism.

I think the ottomans typically catch much less flack than the english.

Only more recent stuff against greeks, armenians and kurds catches flack and those are around to amplify it.

Lmao, really? England has famously been judged for its industrial colonisation, even if it was still in an era where _everyone_ was colonising _everyone_.

Interesting how Genghis Khan got away with it, to most he's now just a "badass" historical figure, I don't think most people could tell of all the terrible things he was responsible for.

Genghis Khan had the "decency" of failing pretty badly at producing an institution outliving him, whereas the English royal family are keeping a shockingly big share of the loot to this day.

In what sense does Genghis Khan get away with it? He was a monster.

Depends who you ask... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Equestrian_statue_of_Genghis_K...

Kublai Khan also makes for decent entertainment: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marco_Polo_(2014_TV_series)

Yes, Genghis was a brutal conqueror so he was a monster (rightfully). But Alexander, who was also a brutal conqueror, killed millions and literally burnt down persian capital is “the great”. See how subtle propaganda works? You dont even realize how it gets to you.

The winner writes the history.

E.g. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Legend

Oh boy, you haven’t read enough about the British rule in India.

Please educate

This is a pretty good read https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/174501.India

This is a bit lighter and not specifically about India, enlightening nonetheless: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/166434.Empire

Basically, the history of British administration of India can not be summed up by the massacre of Amritsar or the sepoy wars

And if you want a perspective other than imperial apologists and colonial nostalgics, read https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/32618967-an-era-of-darkn... and https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/42972023-the-anarchy

which of the two is John Keay?

Inglorious empire is another good one by Tharoor. Provides letters and statements from British officials and officers to show the intent and exploits.

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