ABSTRACT
Chapter 4 focusses on Delhi's second nineteenth-century construct, Picturesque Delhi. This construct is a reading of the historic city by its new rulers in the pre-uprising era, who armed with the English aesthetic sensibility, the Picturesque, negotiated Delhi's unfamiliar landscape and architectural remains. The construct operates against the backdrop of EIC-ruled historic Delhi, with the Mughals still a competing political entity. It is based on a leisurely experience of the city and its environs by Europeans. The construct is spatialized as the Club-Ruin-Retreat combine. Delhi was perceived as a place of antiquity bestowed with not only a large corpus of exotic architectural remains but also a living culture epitomized by the Mughals residing in the Qila, the city's prime attraction. The forms of engagement of Europeans with ruins included documentation; drawing; studying; repairing and repurposing of Qilas, Masjids, Makbaras and Baghs among others. While the ruin was the object of attention and was accessible to all, the retreat was built by Delhi's acculturated and highest EIC functionaries by repurposing ruins to transform them into items of personal consumption. As Europeans satiated their urge for the Picturesque, they had no inkling that Delhi would turn insurgent and shatter the ‘English Peace’.
