The Polish Journal of the Arts and Culture Nr 14 (2/2015) / ARTICLE DOROTA KAMIŃSKA-JONES * (Nicolaus Copernicus University) Aesthetics in the Services of Colonialism. The Picturesque in the Indian Context ABSTRACT The theme of the article is to analyse picturesque aesthetics in the context of the colonial conquest of India. In the irst section, the term, background and basic principles are ex- plained. The analysis conducted on various sources revealed that the aesthetic was import- ant for the formation of speciic attitudes, which in turn were signiicant in the process of the colonisation and maintenance of the Empire. There are two principal spheres in which the picturesque acted as a colonial strategy: the taming and appropriation of the landscape as well as the antiquisation 1 and dehumanisation of the Indians. Each of them, though often at an unconscious level, aimed at the transformation of India for the needs of the British, then the segregation and establishment of control over them. KEY WORDS picturesque, colonialism, British art, aesthetic TERM The term picturesque in England began to be applied from the beginning of the eighteenth century, as an anglicised form of the French word pittoresque or Italian pittoresco. Initially, it was not speciically connected with the land- scape; instead it was used to describe a certain type of scenery or human 1 Antiquisation is a term invented by myself to describe the strategy of considering reality as a relict of the ancient past. * Faculty of Fine Arts Nicolaus Copernicus University, Toruń, Poland e-mail: dorkam@umk.pl