A VISION OF SPLENDOUR: INDIAN HERITAGE IN THE PHOTOGRAPHS OF JEAN PHILIPPE VOGEL, 1903-1913 (The Kern Institute of Collection of Photography and Mapin, Rs 2,000) by Gerda Theuns-de Boer is a meticulously produced work of colonial and photographic history that accompanies the exhibition now on at the National Museum in Delhi. Vogel (1871-1958) was a rather remarkable Dutchman who took up a position in the Archaeological Survey of India as superintendent of the Panjab, Baluchistan and Ajmir Circle in 1901. His office was in Lahore, and he became deputy director general of the ASI between 1910 and 1912, during which time his job took him to Burma. Vogel was a scholar in Sanskrit and epigraphy (the study of ancient inscriptions), and served his office with enthusiasm and rigour. His collection of 10,000 survey photographs are now kept in the Kern Institute, Leiden, the centre of expertise in Indian archaeology set up by Vogel in 1924.
This book selects 150 photographs taken by Vogel and his colleagues, European as well as Indian. The range of Vogel’s activities made him familiar with Islamic, Hindu, Buddhist and Jain art, and he conducted excavations at Charsada in Kusinagara, reputedly the site of the Buddha’s parinirvana. He spoke “passable Hindi” and had greatly enjoyed collecting the “wise sayings” of Govinda Raghu, his servant during the travels through India. Vogel was highly intrigued by the unique position in which he found himself while living in India — “a Dutch citizen operating in a society where neither the indigenous culture nor that of the colonial ruler was his own”. His attitude to the British in India, certainly during the early years of his stay, was coloured by the confrontation between the English and the Boers in South Africa during the Second Boer War (1899-1902). He was active among the Boer war prisoners in India, paying regular visits to the camp in Amritsar, was almost going to lose his job at one point, and sustained his balanced rebelliousness to the end of his stay. He also detested the lack of any real interest in archaeology among the British establishment.
All these photographs were made through the labour-intensive wet-plate technique, in which glass plates served the purpose of the negative. The albumen paper gave them an “unmatched sharpness, depth, and breadth of tonal scale”.
On the left is Philip Adolphe Klier’s photograph of a Burmese idol-maker, taken around 1890 in Rangoon. Top right was taken by W. Caney between 1872 and 1882 in Bhutesvar. It shows five stupa railing pillars with yakshis on crouching male figures. while lusty onlookers peep down from the balconies above. These are fragments from the Kushana period (1st-2nd centuries AD). Bottom right was taken by Vogel himself in 1902. It shows women in the Churah area of the Panjab Circle during a festival.
