1896

From PhalkeFactory

Ishwari Prasad, a court artist at Murshidabad, appointed teacher, Calcutta Art School. How Socrates escaped the plague- TOI report. Freud starts psychoanalysis.



7th July, Watson's Hotel, Bombay, living photographic pictures in life size reproduction by Lumiere Brothers.

It was from Paul that the magician Carl Hertz obtained equipment for his African-Indian tour. The best reproductions of Ravaj Ravi Varma arrived from Germany. These prints reached distant homes and set a style. His litho-press at Bhatwadi, Bombay, was conducted by Mr. Schliecher.

Mhatre makes his "To the Temple" at J.J.School. Such a bustle and hurry o


Art School in Bombay was fast abandoning. In 1896, the best reproductions of Ravi Varma arrived from Germany. Litho prints in more than 40 and 50 registrations of tones and colour and of a liberal size were put in the market. These prints reached distant homes and set a style and standard for pictorial appreciation. Dhrandhar, A.H.Muller, Agaskar, and even the old veteran Abalal were greatly impressed by the work of the artist who built a very lucrative practice opposite Bhatwadi in Bombay. The Litho press which was conducted by Mr. Slasher began to supply and calendars and all sorts of labels to the local market. Commercial firms who could not be served by the Ravi Varma Litho Press began to import labels from Germany or Japan and a flow of prints in the European realistic style mainly of Romantic subjects was firmly established. Bombay the business centre was more impressed by these influences than any other part of India. Book illustrations in texts printed my Macmillan and other English firms were entrusted to artists in Bombay. Rao Bahadur Dhurandhar alone supplied about five thousand of these. Macmillan or Orient Longman-greens had to compete with illustrated books from Blakies and others who supplied the masterpieces of European illustrations in their texts. The Exhibitions which were held by the Bombay Art Society and other Societies in the principle(sic) cities


The ideal sequence

The dog locates a grouse hidden in the heather, and 'points' in the characteristic position that gives the breed its name(top). Quickly, before the grouse can run, the falconer unhoods and puts up the falcon which rises to where it has a commanding view of the field and sufficient height to power its descent.(center). The falcon is now 'waiting on', and the grouse will not fly unless forced to. At the falconer's command; the dog 'puts up' the grouse(bottom) which turns and flies low. The falcon then begins it 'stoop' and levelling off at the last moment ' binds to', catching the grouse in the air.

Plague in Bombay and Pune: national famine until 1897. F.B.Havell, one of the figureheads of the Bengal School of Painting, is appointed superintendent of the Government School of Art, Calcutta. Bankim Chandra Chatterjee's Vande Mataram ( Hail to the Mother) one of India's National Anthems later appropriated by Hindu chauvinists, is recited for the very first time at the Indian National Congress. Bal Gangadhar Tilak inaugrates a festival around the figure of the 17th century Maratha emperor Shivaji to generate nationalist sentiment. B.R.Rajaram Aiyer publishes the social reform novel, Kamalampal Charitram, in Tamil. The singer Vishnu Digambar Paluskar leaves the Miraj court to popularise classical music.

First film screening at Watson's Hotel, Bombay on 7 july, by the Lumiere cameraman Mauris Sestier. The Madras Photographic Stores advertises imported 'animated photographs', reviewed in the Journal of the Amateur Photographic Society of Madras.


Lumieres cinematograph poster.jpg Pathe brothers poster.jpg



in Phalke's journey, 1896



[1]gouhar jaan with gramaphone


Young Ganpatrao Mhatre had enrolled as a painting student in the Bombay art school, but was soon taken up by sculpture. He would often absent himself from class, to the ire of the authorities who asked him to report with an explaination. Mhatre carried the plaster cast he had been working on, of a woman on her way to the temple, and carried it into class and placed it so it would stand in the direct path of the lecturer who walked in. His 'explaination' astounds the principal, Greenwood, who cannot imagine how Mhatre has so seamlessly absorbed the conventions of Greco Roman sculpture while all the while training as a painter? Ravi Varma declared it to be " The most beautiful production of its kind I have ever seen by a native" It was a great vindication for art schools who were often threatened with extinction.


After 1896, Ravi Varma press starts printing oleographs of Shivaji, Tilak, Ranade