1878
synthesis of Indigo, cathode rays
Two important Indian lithographic presses, the Calcutta Art Studio, in Calcutta, and the Chitrashala Press in Pune, started.
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
Vernacular Press Act, severe restrictions on vernacular press. Simultaneously, the founding of two important lithographic presses, co incidentally, in the same year. 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.
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.
