School of Art

The art schools founded by the british took confused routes. Were they meant to be for craftsmen, to preserve Indian craft traditions? To bring in more craftsmen into the British fold, to increase India as a base for craft manufacture, for goods that could be sold abroad? To teach the native how to draw with dimension To teach the native how to draw from nature, not just to repeat abstract patterns To give or not to give the native an instruction in fine art, in life drawing?

Was the teaching practise to improve on existing beauties in the Indian tradition, enhancing them with a naturalistic study of nature. But could illusionism become part of the drawing of motifs, which came from a more abstract tradition?

Individual teachers, and their affections, for their role, for their students, and their own predilicitions in art practices, all affected what got taught. What was clear was that the traditional craftsman was no where on the premises, middle class and upper class boys were benefiting from this art education. Gentlemen artists were being produced.