The idea of land, almost always, evokes a sense of belonging. So when you see a collection of 19th-century paintings of Indian landscapes by English artists in a gallery in Delhi in 2026, it is hard not to wonder, ‘Who does the land belong to?’ The ones who made the works or the ones whose world is depicted?By making over 80 such works, once meant exclusively for English patrons, available to Indian viewers, The Indian Picturesque: Landscape Painting 1800-1850, underway at DAG, attempts to set the record straight. “By bringing these works to India, we are deliberately slipping in the narrative that this is part of Indian art history,” says Giles Tillotson, SVP, DAG, who has curated the show that is on till May 2.George Chinnery’s Figures by a Tomb in Bengal (1810) must be read as more than just a watercolour and graphite version of the titular scene. His delicate washes, which render the work picturesque, are akin to washing of the socio-economic reality of Bengal at the time. It was reeling under the Permanent Settlement system that, under a new zamindar class, was perpetuating rural inequality.Then, there is Henry Salt’s A View at Lucknow (1809). The flourishing capital of Awadh, which the British were eyeing, had emerged as a cosmopolitan centre under the Nawabs, yet the architectural grandeur or the curated gardens are barely seen in Salt’s rendition of the city. Instead, you see ‘dark-skinned’, turban- and langot-clad men harvesting crops, and a couple of elephants.The work is a classic product of the ‘colonial gaze’, under which Indians were portrayed as ones in need of modernisation by the British. Tillotson says that one of the aims of presenting this exhibition — besides continuing DAG’s shows on colonial paintings, including those by William Hodges and Thomas and William Daniell — was also to allow the viewers to take ownership of this gaze. The Tomb of Shaikh Ibrahim Chishti (1815-20) by Murshidabad Artist (Company School) (DAG)“Recently, the picturesque has come under scrutiny… because the period in which it flourished coincided with Britain’s colonial expansion. With its focus on land, the picturesque has been seen as an agent of territorial control, especially in India,” he writes in his curatorial note, and adds, “It is widely understood and agreed that picturesque in India goes hand-in-hand with the territory of expansion of the East India Company. That’s the period we are looking at — pre-uprising. And, here’s the visual evidence. What do you make of it, really?”What, however, makes the exhibition particularly interesting is its section dedicated to works by Indian artists, who adapted this style and approach to landscape painting in order to cater to the Western market and tastes within India. It is rather intriguing to see the artists’ perspectives shift in the works, even if executed in similar styles.Story continues below this adThe Tomb of Shaikh Ibrahim Chishti by a Murshidabad artist (Company School) captures a lived reality that is consistently absent in a British portrayal. Even as it cuts down on scale, the 1815-20 work is enriched by the details of the ruinous facade of the tomb and the ornate capitals of columns. Like most works by British painters, this too has minimal human presence but even in its absence, life is palpable.The exhibition also does a fantastic job of bringing just the form of landscape into the spotlight. Often relegated as decorative, the landscape hasn’t travelled as well as portraiture or figurative art into the contemporary art scene — few artists experiment with it today. The Indian Picturesque reminds us that the landscape, in all its ‘picture-like’ beauty, can also be political.