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At one time the art and architecture of the kingdom of Awadh with its capital in Lucknow were bywords for the inferior and debased. In those days, it was possible for such a respected scholar of Indian architecture as Percy Brown to write with patronizing contempt in his Indian Architecture: Islamic Period (Bombay: D.B. Taraporevala, 1956) about the eighteenth and nineteenth century buildings of Lucknow. For instance, on pages 113-14 of his book, Brown allows that those buildings are of "great size and imposing appearance" and their construction shows "exceptional technical skill," but judges them to be nevertheless of "very dubious taste" with an "excess of ornamentation." He goes on to sum up both the architecture and the culture of the court that produced it by saying that "outward show and tawdry pretence mark the architecture, just as they were symptomatic of the life of the court."
A complete reassessment in recent years of all aspects of the civilization created in Awadh, before it was absorbed into the possessions of the East India Company in 1856, has led to an entirely more balanced and favorable view of the flowering of art and culture that took place there...