From
the Publisher
The Revolt of 1857, often called India First War of
Independence, is always to be remembered as a violent
opposition of the British rule in India. It launched a new
phase in Indian policies and policies and political ideas, and
there emerged amongst the people of India a consciousness of
belonging to one country. Undoubtedly, the uprising of 1857
was a liberation movement, and today, its relevance lies in
its enormous significance as a focus for nationalist sentiment
in modern India.
After the definitive history of the Revolt by
D.P. Chattopadhyaya, Hira Lal Gupta, P.C. Joshi, S.N. Sen, R.c.
Majumdar, S.B. Chaudhuri, Bipin Chandra and Eric Stroke, much
needed fundamental research and interpretation is added to the
earlier accounts of Sir John William Kaye, Sir George Forrest,
G.B. Malleson, James J. McLeod Innes, Martin R. Montgomery and
Thomas Rice Holmes. Today, as the nation observes the 150th
anniversary of the Revolt of 1857, we naturally wish to have
images and visuals of those who have images and visuals of
those who rose in arms in the great uprisings. Though we have
several textual narratives, we have, however, few
illustrations of the incidents of the Revolt, and of the
rebels as individuals.
The present volume illustrated with the contemporary
pictures of the major events of 1857 commemorates this epic of
human race. These historical illustrations thoroughly
captivating take us back to their days and invent a feel of
the times, and present an evocative portrait of the time
through the eyes of a new British artists and eye-witnesses
what it looked like to them, how it felt, how it sounded and
how it smelt. The illustrations, even if tainted by a sense of
vengeance, are by-and-large historical and testify to their
sense of realism.
Author Description
S.P. Verma (born in 1942) taught art history at Aligarh
Muslim University. His publications include Art and Material
Culture in the Paintings of Akbars Court (New Delhi, 1978),
Mughal Painters and Their Work, a Biographical Survey and
Comprehensive Catalogue (New Delhi, 1994), Painting, the
Mughal Experience (New Delhi, 2005) and numerous articles in
academic journals. Also, he is a practicing artist and the
recipient of awards by the Indian Academy of Fine Arts,
Amritsar (1981) and the Academy of Fine Arts, Kolkata (1982).
In 1986-87, he was a Fulbright Fellow at the Freer Gallery of
Art, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C., and a Senior
Fellow (2004-06) at Indian Council of Historical Research, New
Delhi.
Recently, Verma has organized an exhibition of the British
Artists Drawings of the Revolt of 1857 (prepared under the
auspices of ICHR to commemorate the 150th year of the Revolt)
at Aligarh (5-9 April, 2007) and New Delhi (2-6 May, 2007).
