1878
synthesis of Indigo, cathode rays
Dada
When you were children, I wanted to make you a stable of five toy horses, Sally Gardner, Occident, and.. . To tell you about a man called Muybridge and his ambition of proving that when a horse runs, at one point all his legs leave the earth, he actually flies. He got twenty four stereoscopic cameras and put them all along 20 feet of the race track that the horse was to run on. Then, he connected strings to the shutters of the camera, and took the strings across the track. The running horse released the strings, the strings released the shutters. The various movements of the horse were imprinted on the photographic plates. What is photography?
Babaraya(struggling to remember)
Saraswati:
But the images that were printed were not like photographs, they were more like shadow imprints. Because, there were only wet plates available then.
Dada: The images were then played in the revolving zoetrope
Mandakini: But did his feet leave the ground?
Dada: Yes, of course, of course, that was the point of it all. (pleased at her brightness) Yes, they got a photograph of a udhne vaalaa ghoda. (to Sarasvati) You remember, we had a postcard, with the photo of one of the horses
Sarasvati gets up to go look.
Two important Indian lithographic presses, the Calcutta Art Studio, in Calcutta, and the Chitrashala Press in Pune, started.
Occident, Sally Gardner, a stable of horses were called upon to run past a series of strings drawn across a racing course, each string was connected to a shutter of a still camera.. together the 24 stereoscopic cameras were to record the motion of a horse across 20 feet of its running.
The images were less photographic than an imprint, of a shadow of a horse onto the wet plates, before the shutter snapped shut.
Muyridge manages to record the movement of a running horse. The horses' name was Sallie Garnder- 24 stereoscopic cameras were used to record her motion. A track was made parallel to the horse track and the cameras were placed on it, with trip wires that went off when the horse ran through them, putting on the camera attached. The cameras were placed 21 inches apart from each other. Thus 20 feet of the horse running was covered.
The press was present on the occasion. Muybridge had found a sponsor in Leland Stanford.
Greetings by phonograph, the theosophical cat
Hierophant Off for India. Eager to See her Dear Heathen Again, and to Have a Little Tiger Shooting --- Greetings by Phonograph --- The Theosophical Cat. [Reprinted from The Sun (New York), December 19, 1878, p. 1.] ________________________________________
On last Sunday night a farewell reception was given to the friends and the members of the Theosophical Society, by the famous heathen of Eighth avenue, Madame H. P. Blavatsky, who, together with Col. H. S. Olcott and another Theosophist, sailed yesterday for Liverpool, en route for Bombay. The spacious rooms of the Lamasery were denuded of furniture, even the carpets having been torn up and sold, and the guests sat on two or three chairs hardly worth selling, and upon boxes and trunks corded and marked for transportation. The usual refreshments were provided in the usual plenty. Tea was served in rotation, only three teacups being left from the sale, but every guest had either a pipe or a cigarette. The long series of "Sunday nights at home" was ending, and there was an unusual number of unusually subdued Theosophists present. There was much talk of the probable future of the Theosophical Society, which, now that it is in coalition with the Arya Samaj of Aryawari, is expected to become a powerful factor in the development of the mental and religious freedom of the world. But, as was natural, there was far more talk of personal memories and anticipations. Madame Blavatsky carried fully her share of the conversation. Her memories of the years she has passed in America were far from cheerful. "I hate the civilization you boast of," she said, emphatically. But her anticipations were rose colored. "I shall go to Bombay, and be with my dear heathen," she said, "who are free from the yokes of Christianity at least. I shall only stop for a day or two in England to visit our branch society, and then on to India. When I get there, the first thing I shall do will be to go tiger shooting. I shall go into the jungles with one friend, and no guides, and we will not come back till we get each of us a tiger skin." "But it is not for that I go to India," she continued. "It is to work for the Arya Samaj. I promise you you will hear of it before long." Presently a man came in with a phonograph which had been procured for the purpose of carrying greetings to India, without the possibility of any mistake in their delivery. A tall sculptor was dislodged from a barrel on which he sat, and the phonograph was put in position, after which the greetings were shouted into the paper funnel, and a song in pigeon Hindustanee was sung into it by a jolly English artist. Charles, a huge theosophical cat, was then induced to purr at the machine, and the various records were carefully put away. Long after midnight the talk was kept up, and from the writings of the Church in the second century to the latest English attack on the Arya Samaj, religious themes were discussed. On Monday and Tuesday the packing was finished, and on Tuesday night the little party gathered in the Canada’s saloon. Charles, in the mean time, had been sent to a good Theosophist’s house, but had disappeared from the basket in transitu, and has not been seen since. "I don’t know where he is," said the Hierophant, "but I presume we will find him in Bombay when we get there." Yesterday morning a few of the most intimate friends of the travellers went to the steamer to bid them farewell. The Hierophant wrote dozens of last despatches on the cabin table, sending messenger after messenger away on various errands, and giving all sorts of instructions as to the future management of the society to the newly chosen officers. Madame Blavatsky held high court in her stateroom, when the inevitable cigarettes were consumed in great numbers, and when a few of her most faithful disciples were telling her of their grief at her departure. "I am glad to go, but I am sorry to leave the few good friends I have found here," she said, and one by one they bade her what was probably their last farewell on earth.
Vernacular Press Act, severe restrictions on vernacular press. Simultaneously, the founding of two important lithographic presses, co incidentally, in the same year. One of the 'causes' of the Act was publications like Sulav Samachar.."Its message foreshadowed the Ilbert Bill, which sought to abolish the immunity of European offendeers to being tried by Indian judges, a government measure fought tooth and nail by the expatriate British. Sulav Samachar put the Indian case forcefully by highlighting a blatant injustice: often poorer sections of the Indians were assaulted by Europeans, leading to their death. If the case came to court at all, the 'enlarged spleen' of the victim was blamed for this death. The cartoon shows a dead coolie with his weeping wife by his side. A European doctor conducts a perfunctory post mortem while the offender stands nonchalantly smoking a cigar. This suggestion of collusion between European judges and offenders did have an impact, if not the intended one. It was among the incriminating evidence that led to the vernacular press censorship of 1878".
Paintings with painted backdrops
Four graduates of the colonial H.H.Locke's School of Art, form the Calcutta Art Studio. Indian images play their stories out in very western pastoral backgrounds in some of these images. The direction of gaze of the idols shifts sometimes, the gaze suggests a contained world, rather than a staring out of the frame. The great popularity of theatre and staged devotionals in those days affected the way these images looked. The 'painted backdrops', so popular in theatre, became part of many of these paintings.
Parrots that leave their cages
hand finished chromo lithograph
hand coloured wood engraving from the Book- Parrots in captivity
In Pune, Vishnu Shastri Chiplunkar started the Chitrashala press in addition to a vernacular magazine. The Chitrashala Press made images that referred to a glorious Peshwa past, or to Shivaji's time- resurrected through the figure of the Brahman who 'taught' him- Ramdas. Or, there might be an images of the child Ram with his mother, and the pet parrot begin let out of the cage. In tandem with the kinds of writing and discussions that were emerging in Pune, these images had a political significance.
Arms Act- Indians need license to keep, sell or purchase arms. Severe punishments otherwise.
[1]
Anglo Afghan War, Lytton sends a siege train
"Lady with Flower is too big for my drawing room. But I would like to have a look at it...not tragic scenes in my house...I have started admiring the pretty faces of your women. So I would like to have paintings of Krishna with Gopis, Coronation of Rama, and Sita Swayamvara... I would like to have a copy of Nair Lady inside the Mosquito Net which you had presented to the Prince of Wales.
Seshayya Sastri,Dewan Regent of Pudukottai, and a well respected native statesman among the British, writes to Ravi Varma.
Hindi Punch, lived on till 1930. started as the Parsi Punch later re christened.
Ravi Varma paints an eponymous portrait of the Duke of Buckingham, who is the Governor of Madras.
