Empires of light: Vision, visibility and power in colonial India

Niharika Dinkar

doi:10.7765/9781526139641

Beyond its simple valorisation as a symbol of knowledge and progress in post-Enlightenment narratives, light was central to the visual politics and imaginative geographies of empire. Empires of Light describes how imperial designations of ‘cities of light’ and ‘hearts of darkness’ were consonant with the dynamic material culture of light in the nineteenth-century industrialisation of light (in homes, streets, theatres, etc.) and its instrumentalisation through industries of representation. Empires of Light studies the material effects of light as power through the drama of imperial vision and its engagement with colonial India. It evaluates responses by the celebrated Indian painter Ravi Varma (1848–1906) to claim the centrality of light in imperial technologies of vision, not merely as an ideological effect but as a material presence that produces spaces and inscribes bodies.

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Contents

Frontmatter
pp i-iv
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Contents
pp v-v
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List of plates
pp vi-vii
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List of figures
pp viii-xi
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Acknowledgments
pp xii-xiv
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Introduction: writing photo-graphic histories of empire
pp 1-38
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Part I - Technologies of illumination
pp 39-40
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1 - Through the glass darkly: the phantasmagoria of Elephanta
pp 41-66
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2 - Four acts of seeing: the veil as technology of illumination
pp 67-110
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Part II - ‘Visibility is a trap’: battles of the veil
pp 111-112
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3 - ‘Purdah hai purdah!’: proscenium theatre and technologies of illusionism
pp 113-150
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4 - Erotics of the body politic: the naked and the clothed
pp 151-182
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Part III - Chiaroscuro, portraiture and subjectivity
pp 183-184
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5 - Private lives and interior spaces: masculine subjects in Ravi Varma’s scholar paintings
pp 185-217
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6 - Impossible subjects: the subaltern in the shadows
pp 218-249
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Postscript
pp 250-252
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Bibliography
pp 253-281
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Index
pp 282-284
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Empires of light

Vision, visibility and power in colonial India

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Contents

Frontmatter
pp i-iv

Contents
pp v-v

List of plates
pp vi-vii

List of figures
pp viii-xi

Acknowledgments
pp xii-xiv

Introduction: writing photo-graphic histories of empire
pp 1-38

Part I - Technologies of illumination
pp 39-40

1 - Through the glass darkly: the phantasmagoria of Elephanta
pp 41-66

2 - Four acts of seeing: the veil as technology of illumination
pp 67-110

Part II - ‘Visibility is a trap’: battles of the veil
pp 111-112

3 - ‘Purdah hai purdah!’: proscenium theatre and technologies of illusionism
pp 113-150

4 - Erotics of the body politic: the naked and the clothed
pp 151-182

Part III - Chiaroscuro, portraiture and subjectivity
pp 183-184

5 - Private lives and interior spaces: masculine subjects in Ravi Varma’s scholar paintings
pp 185-217

6 - Impossible subjects: the subaltern in the shadows
pp 218-249

Postscript
pp 250-252

Bibliography
pp 253-281

Index
pp 282-284

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Empires of light

Vision, visibility and power in colonial India

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