The artist’s rendering was realistic yet static, set against a clear backdrop with human figures portrayed in a way it looks rigid and insentient, painted as detailed diagram and when the subject is natural history, specimen rendering was meticulous. To define the important features these are the prime elements one shall find in Company painting. A distinct form of painting produced by the Indian local artists, which definitively mark the transition during the eighteenth and early nineteenth century, a metamorphosis from an indigenous Indian school of painting to a unique Indo-European hybrid style of distinction. Due to the simple reason that during 1700’s, technology was not available as we see and access these days while creating and storing pieces of history for the future. Not everyone who set foot or started living here from the west was a painter, the reason why Europeans, predominantly British used to hire artists, mostly painters from India to perform tasks of painting on their behalf. This genre of painting is collectively called ‘Company Paintings’, and this art was naturally influenced by the European style and palette, not to mention- executed by local Indian painters.

In the eighteenth century, with the ever-extending purview of British East India Company in India, it became a necessity for the company to have more British employees to work for the company, in order to expand business and to extend that influence in ruling the newly occupied land. Out of absolute necessity to safeguard their interest, the British East India Company required gathering of in depth knowledge, understanding about India, British Company recruited vast number of employees, and these employees were relocated to India to start a new life and carrier in the new land. Once relocated, this British workforce started exploring India with a mission in mind. They have accumulated substantial quantity of information, categorized and rationalized them to facilitate the process of knowing the country and population. Appropriation of knowledge came in various forms: text translation from different Indian languages, in depth study of Hindu Laws and Hinduism, extensive survey of the Indians, the land, geography, agriculture, archaeology and architecture. All of these was executed in either textual or in visual format. Company paintings played the major role in visual representation as commissioning of these paintings- created in the style in accordance with the Company School, filled the void these Europeans had owing to their perceived lack of understanding in traditional Indian Painting due to ‘Western Biased Knowledge’ and lack of knowledge about India in general. Traditionally Indian school of Miniature paintings are extremely detailed, in vivid colors and with finest lines to delineate the courtly life of the royals, characters from religion and of legends as chosen subjects. The British on the other hand, wanted their own lives in India as subject, the details about neighborhood and native mass, places and events surrounding them to be recorded on a medium in a way they, the British and Europeans can understand and appreciate. As these Europeans were well versed in using watercolor, miniature paintings according to them lacked the suavity like- realism, perspective, proportion and the use of light and shed which they could relish and understand due to their training.