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Was it needful to codify knowledge? Artwork
India
Mixed Media, New Media on Paper
Size: 14 W x 20 H x 0.1 D in
About The Artwork
Early print in colonial Calcutta. (1780-1820) Nathaniel Halhed’s grammar book, A Grammar of the Bengal language, was printed in 1778, and was one of the first printed texts in India. It had a multilingual title page; it had a Bengali subtitle alongside the English title (and the Roman numericals at the bottom), making it undoubtedly a first of its kind. The grammar book was targeting an English readership located both in India and in England. The advent of print in colonial Bengal in the last two decades of the eighteenth century is a story that has its beginnings far away from its source of production. Print technology developed in the western world and was carried across to Calcutta as a byproduct of colonization and the efforts of the East India Company. If the natives were to trust the Britishers, and be complicit partners, they had to believe that the rulers were there for their own good and happiness.
Details & Dimensions
Mixed Media:New Media on Paper
Original:One-of-a-kind Artwork
Size:14 W x 20 H x 0.1 D in
Frame:Not Framed
Ready to Hang:No
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Till as recently as two hundred years ago, India was a manuscript culture; meaning that the printed text did not exist. When the transition took place from a manuscript culture to a print one, it seems to have taken place easelessly, implying that the shift was made without much murmurs and complaints. We can only imagine how the print informed landscape in Calcutta would have changed in the last two decades of the eighteenth century; presses, paper, books, magazines and other print paraphernalia would have arrived as cargo in the ships from England, they would be carted across and stored somewhere and then subsequently bought by printers and booksellers. A multi-lingual, hetero-glossic realm of print emerged - where printed texts in Indian languages created a print-induced public realm, and co-existed alongside English texts.
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