The Colonial Impact on Indian Art Schools and Aesthetic Traditions
Deepshikha Srivastava
Freelancer Artist, DDU Gorakhpur University, Gorakhpur
Abstract
This paper examines how British colonialism shaped the institutional structures, pedagogies, materials, and aesthetic values of art education in India from the mid-19th century through the early 20th century, and how Indian artists and schools responded by adapting, resisting, and hybridizing those influences. Focusing on key institutions, notable by the Madras school of art (1850), followed by the Government college of art in Calcutta (1854), the Sir J.J. School of art in Bombay (1857) and the Mayo School of Art in Lahore (1857). The paper argues that colonial art schools introduced European academic techniques and crafts/design agenda that simultaneously enabled new possibilities and produced cultural hierarchies that Indian modernists contested. The concluding sections discuss long term legacies in postcolonial art education and contemporary debates about decolonising curricula. Primary and secondary sources include archival materials, instructional histories and recent scholarship on art and nationalism in colonial India.
How to Cite: Srivastava, D. (2025). The colonial impact on Indian art schools and aesthetic traditions. Anubodhan, 1(3), 47–62.