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Art, Bombay, British India, Central Asia, history, India, Painting, Russia, Samarkand, War
Apotheosis of War: Dedicated to all conquerors, past, present and yet to come..
The nineteenth century was an age of flux and contradictions: while society was in the throes of a nascent technological revolution, colonial powers like the British and the Russians were embarking on virtually medieval – in their dependence on conventional warfare – tours of conquest enabled by modern artillery, firepower and the railroad – a truly awesome expansionary device that was the prime mover of troops and goods then. At the same time, liberalism had struck deep roots within much of European and American society in the aftermath of the French and American revolutions which had marked the symbolic death of absolutism. Slavery, considered a vile form of bondage that subverts the purported principles of liberty and equality, was banned starting in the early 1800s with the Russian Tsardom being the last major European power to ban serfdom in 1862, under considerable pressure from liberal public opinion. Continue reading
