The Institutes of Akbar 74.3

74.3

The following painters have likewise attained fame: Késū, Lāl, Mukund, Mushkīn, Farrukh the Qalmāq (Calmuck), Mādhū, Jagan, Mohesh, K’hémkaran, Tārā, Sānwlah, Haribāns, Rām. It would take me too long to describe the excellencies of each. My intention is “to pluck a flower from every meadow, an ear from every sheaf.” I have to notice that the observing of the figures of objects and the making of likenesses of them, which are often looked upon as an idle occupation, are, for a well regulated mind, a source of wisdom, and an antidote against the poison of ignorance. Bigoted followers of the letter of the law are hostile to the art of painting; but their eyes now see the truth. One day at a private party of friends, His Majesty, who had conferred on several the pleasure of drawing near him, remarked: “There are many that hate painting; but such men I dislike. It appears to me as if a painter had quite peculiar means of recognizing God; for a painter in sketching anything that has life, and in devising its limbs, one after the other, must come to feel that he cannot bestow individuality upon his work, and is thus forced to think of God, the Giver of life, and will thus increase in knowledge.”