Curious Art Sumptuous Design and Pinching

This morning, very early this morning, I dragged my sorry weekend addled self to the V&A for a lovely breakfast viewing of the Maharaja: The Splendour of India's Royal Courts courtesy of those kind people at Arts & Business. After the triple orally administered caffeine worked its wonder on my synapses off I toddled to view said exhibit.

Ooh , ooh - forgot to say that I have never ever been to the V&A before - even though I was schooled not 200 yards from its front door - for some bizarre reason a person whose entire adult life has been spent absorbing the beauty of art and design - I had never been particularly bothered by the idea..... crap I know. I have now been and will be returning to enjoy the rest of the gaff later... but for now back to the Maharajas....

On my check list of learning new things I have added these:
Maharaja = Great King
British Imperial Regime = Great Kings demoted to Princes
The bling they used to wear is astonishing!
The new 'Princes' of India were required to be educated by English tutors

Anyway into the realms - incredible use of precious metal, stones, fabrics - everything dripped with luxury - which I guess is kinda fair enough given the Great King status.... Three things, however, have made an impact on me.

The first is what an appalling country/empire we were - not a real surprise to me we all know how rubbish the UK has been in culture domination over the centuries - but it was just a bit in your face at the end of this exhibit -in a good sobering way not in 'oh I don't want to know about this lets ignore it' kinda way.

Second is - did India only have one artists magically working throughout the entire two centuries that this exhibition covered. The drawings of people were all the same - and I am not talking from a perspective of they all looked similar - I really mean that the outlines the skewed perspective, the beards , taches and eyes all looked exactly the same in every single illustration - very very curious.... could someone tell me why, please?

Thirdly and lastly, the naughty schoolboy in me thought as I ventured in 'wonder if there will be any, you know, rudey dudey Karma Sutra illustrations in there. And there were - three to be precise, tucked discretely in the second room. A sliding scale of Rudey Dudey. First - two people under a rug.... second a classic image (no need to go into detail) - and third a very faint pencil drawing of a guy 'showing his skill by keeping three ladies happy at the same time'. At this point my female colleague wisely chirped up 'that's not really going to please a woman - all he is doing is pinching them'...... this has become my fourth lesson learnt for the check list:

No pinching

My wife will be very pleased about this one I am sure.