Indian Painting under the Mughals, A.D. 1550 to A.D. 1750 c11.9

c11.9

In the course of any study of Indian art—and the remark also applies to Asiatic art generally—it becomes evident to the occidental that this subject in the East is not viewed from exactly the same standpoint as it is in the West; in other words art, to the oriental, has a connotation peculiarly its own. As one of many illustrations of this it is only necessary to refer to the now well-known fact that in most Asiatic countries calligraphy has always been considered as a higher art than that of painting. In India under the Mughals painters were regarded merely as hereditary craftsmen, men, who, under a long course of training gradually became adept in painting pictures. On the other hand the *khushnavīs*, or beautiful writer, was a heaven-sent genius, one whose art could not be acquired by practice, however long-continued, or by working according to rules; it was a natural gift. There are sayings and anecdotes of the great writers, but none of their brothers the painters. In many instances the two craftsmen combined, so that we see on one side of a Mughal miniature a few lines of poetry written by one of the masters of the calligraphic art, and the reverse occupied by a painting, but in no case has either work any relation to the other. Both arts appeared in India with the introduction of paper into that country. The miniature painting of the Mughals, as will be described in detail hereafter, was a process of water colour—technically called *tempera*—applied to the surface of paper. Paper was one of the commodities which the Muhammadan invaders brought with them to India, and it is hardly realized to what extent its employment affected the graphic arts of the country. Previously, the Indian, ever conservative, had clung to his picturesque but somewhat primitive palm-leaf, on which he wrote with an iron style, and continued to do so until long after the rest of Asia had taken to paper as a necessary article of use. In India, even up to the fifteenth century, paper was practically unknown, except among the Gujarātī traders of the west coast, who were compelled by circumstances to utilize it in their transactions with countries across the seas. The long delay in the acceptance of paper therefore, both for writing and consequently for artistic purposes, is one of the principal reasons why hardly any pre-Mughal painting in India is known. When, however, under the Mughals, this article came into official, and later, into more general use, it soon found favour with all classes, and the immediate development of painting on paper was one of the results.