In Calcutta, the cosmopolitan colonial capital of nineteenth-century India, artists and artisans adapted new technologies of mechanical reproduction to render the Hindu gods more accessible and affordable. During this time, they pioneered the chromolithographic religious print, a form of popular devotional imagery that became ubiquitous in twentieth-century India. This lecture by Richard H. Davis explores how this new genre emerged and proliferated into the pervasive visual language of modern India.
This lecture is made possible by the generous support of Jeff Soref and Paul Lombardi.