From 'Primitive' Artisans to 'Modern' Craftsmen: Colonialism, Culture, and Art Education in the Late Nineteenth-Century Punjab

By closely reading the debates on the art school curriculum within the Indian civil and educational bureaucracy in the last quarter of the nineteenth century, this article analyses the fundamental shift in the theoretical and methodological basis of art education in colonial art schools, which were founded for the revival of Oriental arts and craftsmanship through western ideas of visual literacy. A detailed analysis of the founding decades of the Mayo Schools of Art demonstrates the intersection of aesthetic discourses in art education with the Orientalist views of Indian society as a traditional, tribal caste-based society. The colonial sociology of occupational castes became the conduit to recruit and train artisan castes in the Mayo School of Art. While this colonial policy of caste-based education in Punjab favoured artisan castes in their occupational careers, it restricted the enterprising students of artisan families who wished to pursue their careers independently of their hereditary associations.