The Mughal Painting

 By: Unknown    11:07  No comments

The Mughal painting 

Akbar laid the foundations of Mughal painting, a unique confluence of Persian, Indian, and European art. The emperor rejected the orthodox view that artists transgressed by seeking to rival God's creation and insisted that they felt all the more humble before God's omnipotence because they could not infuse painted figures with life. The Mughal emperors, who received instruction in painting as part of their educa­tion, cultivated the art of the book with a rare passion. Their exquisite volumes were placed on stands, each individual page scrutinized for its elegant lines and delicate brushwork, which needed to be enlarged to be fully appreciated (the glass lens was already in use at this time). During his flight from Agra, the emperor Humayun never lost sight of his book collection; his first thoughts on returning to Agra were of his library, and it was from its steps that he fell to his death.

We owe much valuable information on the production and con­sumption of art in India to the Mughal period. While in exile in Iran and Mghanistan, Humayun invited the Persian artists Abd us-Samad and Mir Sayyid Ali to set up a royal workshop (karkhana) in Agra. : Abu'l Fazl gives us details of this workshop, which was inherited by Akbar and turned by him into one of the largest artistic establishments of the time. Muslim karkhanas were collaborative enterprises compris­ing paper makers, calligraphers, illuminators, gilders, illustrators, and binders, all supervised by a master. However, Akbar's karkhana was more hierarchical than the Persian ones, the master being in charge of the composition, while the execution was left to junior artists.

Paper, initially imported from Iran, began to be manufactured in the Punjab from the sixteenth century. Paints were made from animal, vegetable, and mineral substances, brushes from animal hair. The production of artist's materials was controlled for quality during Akbar's reign. Many layers of paper were glued on top of one another' to form a 'hardboard' painting surface. This was primed, burnished with agate, and then a freehand drawing was made or a stencil traced onto it. The preliminary brush drawing was done in red or black paint, the burnishing repeated after each stage of painting, giving a dazzling finish. Safavid painting, introduced by the two Persian masters, continued to be the model, while regularly imported stencils indicated the colours to be used. The work was divided among different artists specializing in foundation drawing, background, figure work, and portraiture, only master painters being allowed to do the outline drawing.

Painters at Akbar's court

From the attention lavished on miniature paintings in the Mughal period one might imagine that wall paintings had gone out of favour. This is, however, disproved by ample literary evidence, their depiction in miniatures, and from surviving fragments on walls. But undoubt­edly the ablest artists and most ambitious works were connected with the art of the-book. The artist continued to be a craftsman who had no independent status. As late as the time of Shah Jahan, painters born in the imperial household were called khanazad (second-generation servants). Artists, their children, and their apprentices were part of the imperial household, which met all their needs. The Mughal painters Abu'l Hasan, son of Aqa Riza, and Manohar, son of Basawan, were born in the imperial household during Akbar's reign. Given training from an early age, they graduated from pattern books to the human figure, and practice in the drawing of flowers was meant to arouse their aesthetic feeling.

The highly competitive atmosphere at the court spurred artists to surpass themselves. The emperors conducted weekly inspections of paintings attended by courtiers, who offered criticisms. Out of over a hundred painters, including the woman artist Nadira Banu, about a dozen rose to prominence as masters with distinctive skills and person­alities. They were rewarded with high positions and honours. Abu'l Fazl's Ain i-Akbari ranks artists in order of merit. However, before the reign of Akbar's son Jahangir it is less common to find individual artists signing specific paintings. This raises the question: in these collaborative works, to what extent can we ascribe an artistic style to the patron's taste or to artistic personality?

The frenzied movement, feverish activity, clashing colours, and high drama which characterize the paintings of Akbar's early period have been attributed to his taste, much as Jahangir's introverted personality is seen to be mirrored in the intimate works of his reign. But it is equally interesting that the two leading artists at Akbar's court, Daswanth and Basawan, seem to have left a clear stamp of their temperaments on their art. The brief, tragic life of Daswanth is the stuff of romance, reflecting the topos of genius better known in the West than in India. Considered by Abu'l Fazl to be the finest Mughal painter, a view fully shared by Akbar, Daswanth became a legendary figure in his lifetime. The son of a humble palanquin bearer, his compulsive habit of drawing on walls brought him to Akbar's notice, who arranged for Abd us-Samad to train him. Daswanth 'became matchless in his time…but the darkness of insanity enshrouded the brilliance of his mind, and he died a suicide, writes Abu'l Fazl. It is interesting to note that this is the only recorded case of self-conscious artistic neurosis in pre-modern India.

Daswanth has been identified with particularly dramatic, expressionist works, and it is significant that after his death in I584 Mughal painting moved away from a Dionysian frenzy towards an Apollonian lyricism associated with the other master, Basawan. According to Abu'l Fazl, our invaluable guide in these matters, in 'designing, painting faces, colouring, portrait painting, and other aspects of this art Basawan has come to be uniquely excellent. Many perspicacious connoisseurs give him preference over Daswantha. Basawan focused on pictorial composition, subtle tones, foreshortening, and the complex arrangement of figures in a landscape, evidence of his exposure to European art.

Akbar's workshop under Mir Sayyid Ali and Abd us-Samad recruited Indian painters in large numbers, whose formative works are preserved in the Tuti Nama (The Tales of a Parrot, a popular Indian folk tale, completed in the mid-sixteenth century). Even though Safavid and Timurid artists continued to serve in Akbar's workshop, it was the immediacy of feeling in western Indian art that enabled Mughal paint­ing to cut its Persian umbilical cord, namely the Safavid subordination of detail to an overall formal arrangement. The Tuti Nama is valuable also for showing us how young Gujarat artists such as Daswanth and Basawan were in the process of absorbing Persian art. Work began on the first landmark in Mughal art, Hamza Nama, in around 1562, its overall unity imposed by the workshop. The mythical adventures of the Prophet's uncle, Amir Hamza, interspersed with moral lessons, were illustrated with paintings on a larger format than the average Safavid works (14 x 10 inches) and painted on cotton rather than paper. Rediscovered in the nineteenth century, some 200 out of 1, 400 works have survived (mainly in the Osterreiches Museum fur Angewandte Kunst, Vienna and the Victoria and Albert Museum, London). While the visual impact of objects, such as brightly coloured polychrome tiles and richly patterned carpets, together with the luminous colours of Safavid painting liberated Indian artists from their hitherto limited palette, they themselves brought a freshness to details such as the leaves of trees or women drawing water from a well. But, above all, the dramatic and violent movement depicted in the Hamza Nama is alien to the remote, ordered sensibility of the Safavid artist.

As part of his objective of gaining Hindu confidence, Akbar turned to the Sanskrit epics Mahabharata and Ramayana soon after the arrival of learned Brahmins at the House of Worship in Sikri in 1580. These were translated, and provincial governors were instructed to make copies of them in an effort to disseminate Hindu classics throughout the empire. The second major painting series, for the Razm Nama, the Persian translation of the Mahabharata, was commenced in 1582 under the supervision of Daswanth, the emperor's favourite.

History painting

The powerful drawing style developed in these two early projects with their depiction of psychologically related figures laid the foundations of Akbar's history painting. A revolutionary development in Indian art, Akbar's historical narratives perfectly express his theory of kingship: in every painting the sovereign assumes his role as the chief actor in the historical spectacle taking place before us. An archival office headed by Abu'l Fazl and manned by 14 clerks made faithful records of daily events, while court officials were encouraged to write their memoirs. Although this obsession with detail earned the dynasty the sobriquet 'paper government:, it is thanks to Abu'l Fazl's Akbar Nama (History of Akbar) and Ain i-Akbari (Laws of Akbar) that we get an unrivalled insight into the age and into the mind of the great em­peror. And if Abu'l Fazl was too close to the throne to be objective, the corrective was supplied by Badauni, the orthodox historian who disapproved of Akbar's liberalism.

Akbar was in need of a narrative style that could do justice to his eventful reign, which revolved round the court, the hunt, and the battlefield. The earliest example of an illustrated text used as an exercise in political legitimization, Timur Nama (History of Timurlang) traces Akbar's genealogy back to the illustrious Mongol warrior. It is significant that the paintings in this text constantly juxtapose Akbar with Timurlang. For instance, scenes of Akbar hunting are modelled on those of Timurlang. The central text of Akbar's reign, however, was the Akbar Nama, the illustration of which was entrusted to Basawan, who rose to prominence after Daswanth's suicide.

Akbar's search for a convincing pictorial 'reporting' style was aided by his discovery of European art, traces of which can be discerned in works as early as the Hamza Nama. However, his meeting with the Portuguese came at a significant moment. In 1572, on his visit to Cambay, on the Gujarat coast, the emperor gave an audience to the Portuguese officials who were keen to extend their economic hold in India. Six years later, the Jesuits arrived at Fatehpur Sikri to participate in religious debates, bearing gifts that included an illustrated Royal Polyglot Bible, published in Antwerp by Christopher Plantin in 1568-73. Akbar, his courtiers, and his artists must have pored eagerly over these 'wonderful works of the European painters who have attained worldwide fame'.

Akbar built up a collection of European religious paintings (his favourite subject), as well as secular ones, together with engravings, tapestries, and a musical organ. The actual absorption of European conventions by Mughal artists cannot be dated precisely, although it is known that European prints began flooding the empire in the late sixteenth century. The first stage of wonder and experimentation probably gave way to selective appropriation. Among early responses, there exists a precocious copy of St John from Durer's Crucifixion by the 13-year-old Abu'l Hasan. At the end of Akbar's reign, the impact of Mannerism begins to be palpable, as for instance in the night scene from Jami's Baharistan, painted by Miskina, who uses subtle atmospheric light and deep dramatic colours. Although history painting dominates Akbar's period, there was no shortage of intimate works like these, which were meant for private delight.

The reign of Jahangir

Akbar's eldest son, Salim, by his Rajput queen, Jodha Bai, succeeded him, assuming the name Jahangir ('Seizer of the World'). Having lived in the shadow of his father, Jahangir's response was to withdraw into a private world of pleasure. A man of refined sensibility, his overindulgence in the good things of life ultimately led to alcoholism and physical decline but he took Mughal painting to great heights, creating a symbiotic relationship between the patron and the artist. Jahangir's sharply observed journal, Tuzuk i-Jahangiri, offers us a mirror as much to his personality as to the age itself.

As heir apparent, he had caused the ageing emperor a great deal of sadness by his rebellion and the murder of Akbar's close companion, Abu'l Fazl. However, Jahangir made his architectural debut with the pious act of building his father's mausoleum at Sikandra, renamed Paradise Town in honour of the great emperor. As had become the practice, the sepulchre was set in the midst of a four-square garden of paradise, with lofty minarets at four corners of the entrance gateway, the first of the multiple-minaret designs that became a common feature of the later Mughal style. Its square ground plan, which consists of progressively diminishing layers, reminds us of Buddhist stupas. This is an early example of a Jahangiri building whose rich surface texture is created with red sandstone, white marble, stone intarsia (inlay), tile work, and painted stucco.

Nur ]ahan and female patronage

A more opulent tomb, built much later, was dedicated to the father of the charismatic Nur Jahan ('Light of the World'), the pivot of Jahangir's life. Although legends tell of young Jahangir's love for Nur Jahan, he probably met her after becoming emperor. Once she was married to the emperor, a junta centring on her family assumed enormous power, taking advantage of Jahangir's progressive alcoholism. Nur Jahan was accorded the rare honour of having coins struck in her name. One of the major women patrons in India, she may have inspired more Persianate ornaments and popularized the use of more realistic figures, hitherto discouraged as an un-Islamic, Hindu predilection. But her greatest contribution lay in architecture and gardens. NurJahan's informed taste in architecture is demonstrated in her most important commission, Itimad ud-Daula, the tomb for her father, a two-storeyed white marble sepulchre with decorative inlays set in the midst of the prescribed four-square garden. A rich texture is provided by delicate pietra dura work (marble inlaid with precious and semi-precious stones). The decorative motifs include representations of wine decanters and fruits of Safavid inspiration that promise the delights of paradise.

Royal gardens

Jahangir emulated his Timurid ancestors in building hunting lodges whose shooting towers were dotted with animal heads as trophies, but clearly gardens were a particular favourite of his, and his enthusiasm in this area was shared by Nur Jahan. The garden increasingly rivalled the citadel as an emblem of royal power and as the site where the divine king received his adoration. Seventeenth-century Mughal gardens, which fused Rajput, Iranian, and Timurid traditions and put a new gloss on the Islamic paradise garden, were integrated into the layout of cities. In his autobiography, the emperor enthuses about the gardens of Agra with their water reservoirs, channels, and plants. Their designer, Khwaja Jahan, was rewarded with the high rank of a Mansabdar. Jahangir waxes eloquent about the clear waters and flowering trees of Kashmir, where he made his summer residence. The harnessing of nature by connecting waterfalls, canals, and terraces to the natural streams and springs of Kashmir equally reflects the taste of his milieu, in which women of the zanana were active patrons. In fact, it is only now that scholars recognize Nur Jahan's share in the gardens of Jahangir's period.

Jahangir and painting

By all accounts, Jahangir's patronage of painting remains the outstand­ing achievement of his reign. A man of discriminating taste, Jahangir's collection included European, Persian, and Deccani paintings as well. In his time, illustrated manuscripts gave way to self-contained, deco­rated albums (muraqqas) of miniature paintings. In these muraqqas, two calligraphic pages facing each other are often followed by two related paintings, thus giving the albums a greater unity. When Jahangir set up his rebel court at Allahabad, one of his first acts was to give the émigré Iranian painter Aqa Riza charge of his painting work­shop. Jahangir took particular pleasure in the company of artists, whom he honoured in different ways, conferring a very high title on Abu'l Hasan and sending Bishndas as part of a diplomatic delegation to the Safavid court of Iran. Jahangir was particularly proud of his discerning eye:

“My liking for painting and...judging it have arrived at such a point that when any work is brought before me ... I say on the spur of the moment that it is the work of such and such a man. And if there be a picture containing many portraits and each be the face of a different master, I can discover which face is the work of each of them.”

The weekly inspection of an artist's work in progress, initiated by Akbar, was taken even more seriously by Jahangir. The prestige acquired by painters at the Mughal court led to a growing demand for masterpieces, which makes the task of telling an original from a copy rather difficult.

The development of naturalism

Seventeenth-century Mughal painting is dominated by two tenden­cies: the formal Persian arrangement of lines and colours and the new requirements of naturalism. Jahangir's attachment to mimesis was noted by the British envoy, Sir Thomas Roe, who, on giving an English miniature to the emperor, was immediately presented with a plethora of copies by Court artists. When asked by Jahangir to identify the original, Roe was momentarily at a loss, which pleased Jahangir no end. The origins of the Jahangiri style lie in the series produced in 1601 at Allahabad in Aqa Riza's Persian idiom. Yet the growing importance of naturalism is tellingly illustrated by the fact that Aqa Riza's own son, Abu'l Hasan, became its leading exponent.

From these early exercises, Jahangir's workshop went on to develop naturalistic colour compositions, as lyrical understatement with a concern for tonal values became fashionable in the paintings of his reign. Naturalism, in part inspired by European prints, enabled painters to invest faces and figures with solidity, to set up psychological relationships, and generally a story more convincingly. Single figures were now placed against plain backgrounds or distant land­scapes, which often quoted details of European pictures. Above all, the Renaissance concept of 'consistent lighting' was explored, creating tensions between naturalism and the formal arrangement of lines and colours.

Alongside such stylistic changes, artistic individualism under Jahangir became more pronounced. The younger generation in the royal workshop-including Basawan's son Manohar and Aqa Riza's son Abu'l Hasan, as well as Balchand, Daulat, Govardhan, Bishndas, Mansur, Bichitr, and Padarath -all signed their individual works. Daulat sketched four of his colleagues and himself, and Abu'l Hasan depicted himself presenting his work to Jahangir. These self-represen­tations were clear indications of the artists' assertion of their worth. Among these versatile masters, let us consider two very different per­sonalities, Abu'l Hasan and Govardhan. Each of them had a personal style that gave expression to naturalism in remarkably different ways.

Abu'l Hasan, a colourist by preference, was given the tide Nadir uz- Zaman (‘Light of the Age') by the sovereign, who considered his work to be perfect. His portraits, with their soft outlines and subtle shading, deftly capture individual faces, as in the painting that celebrates the occasion when Jahangir conferred the title Shah Jahan ('King of the World') on the 25-year-old prince, Khurram.

Very little is known about Govardhan, whose career also spanned Shah Jahan's reign. Although he was one of the most accomplished portraitists of the time, he was fascinated by the nude as depicted in western art, modelling individual figures softly and observing the details of bony fingers and toes with sensitivity. The naked yogis he was so fond of painting, with their erotic overtones, gave him scope to display his virtuosity with light and shade.

Portraiture

As artistic personalities flourished, so too did a wide range of styles and genres which developed during Jahangir's reign: portraits, dynastic subjects, and animals, flower, and literary paintings replaced the epic narratives of Akbar’s reign. Although Akbar had complied a large album of portraits of his courtiers and himself, not until Jahangir's time do we encounter psychological portraits of variety and depth. The formal court scenes, with ensembles of courtiers, based on workshop stencils of their likenesses, depicted individuals accurately enough to be recognizable, thus serving as official records, a practice begun by Akbar.

Portraits served also as instruments of diplomacy. Bishndas was sent to the court of Shah Abbas of Iran; Manohar's likeness of Jahangir was presented to Sir Thomas Roe, James I' s envoy to the Great Mughal. The latter survives only as a print in the seventeenth-century English travel compendium Purchas His Pilgrimes. A rare portrait, purported to be that of Nur Jahan, epitomizes the empress's unconven­tionality for royal ladies, who seldom appeared before artists, were usually portrayed in stereotypical forms. The hunting gun she holds suggests that she was a good shot, a prowess admired by the monarch himself. Royal women, including the daughters of Jahangir, Shah Jahan, and his successor Aurangzeb, were patrons as well as amateur painters. On the other side of the coin, women artists were attached to Jahangir's zanana. Among them, we know of Nadira Banu, a pupil of Aqa Riza, and a princess, Sahifa Banu. Few portraits are more intriguing than the late allegorical ones of Jahangir. Their complex iconography, partially revealed in poems inscribed on the paintings, often conceals political messages. Jahangir's imaginary encounter with contemporary monarchs underlines the political message or a 'Pax Mongolica' reinforced by motifs such as the nimbus (halo), a solar symbol, the world map, and the juxtaposition of the lion and the lamb.

Mughal animal paintings reflect Jahangir's curiosity about the natural world. At Jahangir's insistence, numerous paintings of animals, birds, flowers, and plants served as objective records of the flora and fauna of the realm. Jahangir's curiosity had a morbid side as well, which inspired The Dying Inayat Khan, a drawing of tragic intensity. It is also rare that a drawing should survive from the period, since drawings were not collected but only used by artists as the basis for paintings.

One cannot leave Jahangir's reign without mentioning the magnifi­cent display of wealth at the court. One typical ceremony held on special days was the weighing of the sovereign and the princes against gold, silver, and other precious materials. These were later distributed among the poor, a practice that had roots in ancient India. The emperor's collection of objects d'art included Chinese figures and vases, gem-studded weapons, articles of personal attire such as jewelled turban pins, and objects of domestic use, such as jade wine cups, enamelled hookah bases, magnificent carpets, and precious stones.

The reign of Shah Jahan

In 1628 Jahangir's third son, Khurram, better known as Shah Jahan ('King of the World') (1628-58), seized the throne by putting his rivals to death. Mughal treasures acquired a legendary reputation in his time, but the pomp and circumstance of Shah Jahan's reign had an underly­ing political message. A heterogeneous ruling class created by Akbar had supplanted the hereditary aristocracy, but it had become entirely dependent on the sovereign's personal charisma, which was sustained f by the imperial myth. Shah Jahan codified Mughal personal rule through court rituals, architecture, and painting, formalizing the existing social pyramid with the emperor at its apex. His art and his treasures lent grandeur to his reign that impressed his subjects no less than it did foreign visitors. The monarch spent part of each day examining gems and inspecting the work of painters, carvers, engravers, goldsmiths, enamellers, and architects.

Yet all was not well in the state of the Grand Mughal. A long reign of peace and the glittering life at court camouflaged the inner decay of the realm, a decline hastened by Shah Jahan's inordinate love of precious objects. Life at court had become artificial, governed by strict rules of etiquette that glorified the increasingly intolerant emperor at the expense of the nobles. Shah Jahan's policy of territorial expansion was a costly failure, while the oppression of peasants reached an intolerable level.

Shah Jahan and painting

Shah Jaban's public support of the Islamic injunction against images earned him the reputation of being indifferent to painting. But this was not the case. As in other spheres, the emperor exercised strict control over painting projects so that they underlined his theory of kingship, but within these constraints his artists produced works of great richness, finish, and refinement, even when dealing with gory subjects such as the beheading of rebels. Striking innovations during his reign included the use of form to express hierarchy and a new genre of panoramic landscapes with deeper perspectives and vivid treatments of fortresses and woods. A fashion for equestrian portraits was taken up rapidly by the provincial governors, especially the Rajput princes. Rembrandt had one such portrait. His pen and ink sketches after Mughal paintings, which retain his mastery of line and tone without destroying the essential character of Mughal art, add an unusual chapter to the history of cultural borrowings.

Historical narrative

History painting, in abeyance since the reign of Akbar, appeared with renewed vigour as a prime vehicle for sustaining the Mughal theory of kingship, much as architecture had been exploited for its own symbolic language. Military campaigns, which once again became necessary as rebellions broke out in various parts of the empire, continued to be painted as in Akbar's times, with the difference now that the emperor's agents, rather than himself, were shown engaged in maintaining law and order. Some of the finest examples of history painting are in the official chronicle of Shah Jahan, the Padshah Nama. A number of illustrations to this royal text by Balchand, Bichitr, Bishndas, Daulat, Payag, and other major artists include formal court scenes. A favoured pictorial device here was to place the haloed emperor in the ceremonial balcony, while the courtiers were depicted in profile below him, arranged symmetrically rather than interacting with one another. It is interesting to note that the lower echelons were portrayed in livelier poses.

These court scenes give us useful information about the interiors of buildings, not least about wall paintings, which can be seen in the background, attesting to their continued importance. However, more intimate works of the period have their own appeal. Their major exponent, Payag, was fascinated with chiaroscuro and used it to give the Mughal art of storytelling a new intensity. The clever use of a single, centrally placed light source enabled him to delineate the, different figures vividly and yet invest them with a sense of mystery.

Deccani painting

Before we leave the subject of Mughal painting, it is worth considering a parallel tradition that offered an artistic counterpoint to Mughal art. While both Mughal and Deccani painting owed a great deal to the Safavids, they represent two very different historical processes. The Deccan boasted a painting tradition that remained outside the orbit of Mugha1 painting until the Deccan sultans lost their independence to the Mugha1s. Following the demise of the southern Vijayanagara empire in 1564, the rival Bahamani dynasty in the Deccan splintered into the Sultanates of Ahmadnagar, Bijapur, Bidar, Berar, and Golconda. These successor states, which had close links with Safavid Iran through trade and marriage, fell prey to the Mughals on account of their lucrative foreign trade and diamond mines, which until the eighteenth century were the major source of this precious stone. Golconda was renowned internationally for its dyed textiles, and later for the export of chintz, while in the eighteenth century Bidar acquired

a high reputation for its refined inlaid metalwork, the so-called Bidriware.

The most familiar Deccani paintings are those associated with Ibrahim Adil Shah II (1586-1627) of Bijapur, an enlightened patron of poetry, music, and painting. They are portraits with fully rounded figures, seen through flowing, transparent skirts. Ibrahim also had portraits painted of himself, attired in coloured silk garments and adorned with jewellery, in standing or seated poses against a low-key background. Ibrahim, whose ancestors were Ottoman Turks, repre­sented a synthesis of Hindu and Muslim cultures. His mother tongue was Marathi but he was well-versed in Persian. Hindus, notably his adviser Antu Pandit, enjoyed positions of power within his kingdom. A skilled painter and calligrapher himself, Ibrahim inspired innova­tions in painting.

However, it is the intriguing case of Ibrahim Adil Shah's favourite court painter, Farrukh Husain, that has continued to attract scholarly attention. He has been identified as Farrukh Beg, who was born around 1547 and received his training in Khorasan in Persia. He joined Akbar's karkhana at its initial stages but mysteriously disappeared between the years 1590 and 1605. It is almost certain that during this period this talented painter was working for Ibrahim. Subsequently, he rejoined the Mughal court and was honoured by Jahangir with the title Nadir al-Asr ('Wonder of the Age'). Around 1627, as the Deccani kingdoms increasingly succumbed to the Mughals, so Deccani paint­ing failed to resist the influx of Mughal art.