VISUAL ARTS
Many of the prints displayed at the exhibition, Bourne & Shepherd: Figures in Time (March 9-24), organized jointly by Tasveer and the Harrington Street Arts Centre, would have been familiar to viewers. But what made a huge difference was their size. Save about 14 original vintage prints, these were blow-ups of the relatively small contact prints. So viewers enjoyed the rare opportunity of scrutinizing the magnificent details that came to view in these huge prints. The digital versions revealed their hidden life concealed in the diminution of the earlier prints.
Samuel Bourne (1834-1912), who took these photographs, worked with the wet-plate collodion process, and the prints created the illusion of the third dimension probably because the contrasts were sharper, imparting a sense of luminous solidity to these images. Even the state-of-the-art high definition photography cannot hold a candle to the original contact prints. The beautiful catalogue of the exhibition includes a brief biography of Bourne and an account of his expeditions to the Himalayas and other Indian cities and towns picturesque enough to hold the attention of viewers back home.
Obviously this was long before urbanization and mountaineers, who leave their trash behind, had sullied even the most serene and remote mountains and glaciers, and Bourne's photographs revealed their pristine beauty. A few of these prints of scenic beauty were displayed here, but the focus was on grand monuments and temples and urbanscapes as the cities burgeoned rapidly. In this, Bourne came close to the Daniells, both uncle and nephew, whose paintings and prints brought alive the grandeur, glamour and mystery of India for the people back home in the 18th century, almost a century before Bourne.
Calcutta still has close associations with this best known of colonial photographers as the establishment, Bourne & Shepherd, that he set up here in 1865 has just closed down. A devastating fire in 1991 gutted the crumbling building in which it is housed today. The fire is said to have wiped out the archive kept in the studio. Since it was the leading studio of the land, many well-known people came here for portraits.
Siddhartha Ghosh in his book titled, Chhobi Tola, Bangalir Photography Charcha, commenting on two catalogues of the establishment published circa 1940, wrote: "Both catalogues together listed thousands of photographs... Yet Rabindranath came again and again to Bourne & Shepherd. Other Tagores too visited it en famille. They had photographed Ramakrishna. Upendrakishore went there. Saratchandra much later. These are undisputed facts... Many Bengali establishments have survived just by making print copies of their photographs of Vidyasagar, Bankimchandra, Madhusudan and Rabindranath and framing these." There was no trace of this in the exhibition. Samuel Bourne was its focal point.
The majestic scale on which the great Moghul monuments were constructed is the first point that strikes viewers. So fine is the balance between white and grey in these prints that they look more like etchings than like photographs. The elegance and grace of the arches unfolding like lotuses in the interiors of Moti Masjid (1866) in Agra are matched by the delicate lines that delineate each slab of marble on the floor, and the floral motifs of the pietra dura (parchin kari) running along the borders.
The second element that surprises viewers is the peace and tranquillity that reign in these great forts, mosques and mausoleums that are tourist spots now and teem with rowdy rubbernecks. They look secluded and abandoned, which perhaps they were in those times. Bourne introduced Indian men in his views and positioned them strategically against these structures to give viewers an idea of the awe-inspiring scale on which they were built.
For those who live in Calcutta, the 19th-century views of the city were breathtaking for more reasons than one. They unlock the secrets of the past. The only building that could be identified on Clive Street (1880) is a section of the building that is now the Eastern Railway headquarters. The other houses are all low-rises with louvers, and the vehicles are horse or bullock-drawn, and instead of Scotsmen who dominated the street a few years later, we only see natives.
Government House (Raj Bhavan) of 1867 is without its wall of trees, the Hooghly teems with sailing ships, and on the bank are a Muslim (probably a tradesman wearing a cap), a Hindu wearing a dhoti and coolies. Even more amazing is Chowringhee of 1867 with waterbodies behind it in which is reflected the steeple of St Paul's Cathedral that collapsed in the 1934 earthquake (picture). In the foreground are Indians - probably a bhisti and some malis.
