Felice Beato
Topic: The Revolt of 1857 · NCERT: Class 12, Ch 2 "Rebels and the Raj"
Meaning
Felice Beato was an Italian-British photographer. He travelled to North India just after the Revolt of 1857 and took some of the earliest war photographs of India. His pictures showed ruined places and the dead, which made the British victory feel real to people at home. Historians now use his photographs as sources. They show how the British wanted the revolt to be seen and remembered.
Example
Beato's photograph of Secundrah Bagh in Lucknow (1858) shows the skeletons of rebel sepoys lying in the open. More than 2,000 rebels had been killed there. The remains were left as "a cold warning of the futility of rebellion", meaning rebelling was useless. He also photographed a mosque on the Delhi Ridge after the fighting.
Don't confuse with
- Thomas Jones Barker: a painter, not a photographer. His painting "Relief of Lucknow" (1859) celebrated British heroes. Beato's camera recorded ruins and the dead.
Related concepts
- Relief of Lucknow
- Colin Campbell
- James Outram
- Henry Havelock
- Sikandar Bagh
- In Memoriam painting
- Punch
- British Lion's Vengeance on the Bengal Tiger
- Clemency of Canning
- Blowing from guns