Indian Painting under the Mughals, A.D. 1550 to A.D. 1750 c13.31

Language: English

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From this brief account of the evolution of painting in Persia, we may now turn to India and endeavour to follow the progress of this art during the corresponding periods of time. The origin of Indian painting does not begin with the Buddhist frescoes of Ajanta and Bagh. These wonderful wall pictures emerge too fully matured to be regarded as the first stages of the art. Long before the Buddhist artist priest perfected his style of work, painting was extensively practised in India, as many references in ancient literature plainly indicate. Nevertheless these pictures of the first centuries of the Christian era are the earliest actual examples of Indian painting that have survived. Of the Buddhist school of painting much might be written, but here it will suffice to say that it formed undoubtedly the foundation of the pictorial art of India in all its succeeding phases. The outstanding feature of these frescoes is their ‘ Indianness ’, for, with the exception of a few extraneous elements, they are essentially Indian in character, expressing in the most truthful manner the life of the time. In figure-drawing, in costume, in scenes from nature, in all the accessories introduced by these skilful artists, it is India and all that appertains to the Indian people that are depicted.

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And this indigenous character, this ‘ Indianness ’, is the same as persists and is so plainly discernible in the miniatures of the Hindu artists who worked under the Mughal emperor Akbar nine centuries later. These two styles of work in many respects are poles asunder. Nothing could be more dissimilar than the spacious wall paintings of the Buddhists and the minute book illustrations of the Mughal school; in subject, in intention, in sentiment, in every outward form, they are different, yet underlying each is something of the same spirit, something which reflects in both forms of expression the mind of the same artist. Except for this indefinable sense of co-relation, there is, however, little else to connect these two schools of painting. During the long interval that elapsed between them there is but a small amount of material forthcoming, either literary or artistic, to enable us to construct even the semblance of a bridge between the two. Very gradually, however, evidence is coming to light, which may help to fill this wide lacuna, but at present only sufficient has been collected to produce the barest outlines of the story. Of the actual examples of Indian painting executed during the early mediaeval period few have survived. Their scarcity is due to three causes, firstly, the impermanent nature of the art itself; secondly, the action of the climate; and thirdly, the element of human destruction.

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The first two causes were inevitable, but the last, which was intentional, was the most disastrous of all. What oriental art lost by the tide of religious antagonism which swept over Asia in the earlier centuries of the Middle Ages will never be known. Its parallel had, however, already occurred in the West. What the world lost when the pagan art of classical Europe was condemned by Christianity is also beyond comprehension. But in both continents, on the ruins of the past, new art movements arose which show that expression cannot be suppressed. It is an irony of fate that from the chronicles of one who prided himself on his iconoclastic zeal not a little information as to the extent of the artistic wealth of India at this period may be gleaned. In the first years of the eleventh century Mahmud of Ghazni, a Muhammadan ruler in Afghanistan, made seventeen attacks on India, the main object of each being the plunder of its sacred edifices. Mahmud was a man of culture in his own dominions, gathering around him to grace his court talented men from many countries, but his attitude towards the people of India displayed a religious fanaticism which knew no bounds. Some of the experiences of this ‘Idol-Smasher’, for such he gloried in being called, as recorded by his own hand according to the historian Farishta, while intended primarily as a note of exultation at the value of his booty, also throw some light on the prolific nature of the arts of the country at this time.

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Mathura, a place of great sanctity, which he sacked in the year 1019, he thus describes: ‘This marvellous city encloses more than a thousand structures, the greater number in marble and as firmly established as the faith of the true believers. If we reckon the money which all these monuments must have cost, it will not be too much to estimate it at several millions of dinars, and moreover it must be said that such a city could not be built even in two centuries. In the pagan temples my soldiers found five idols of gold, whose eyes were formed of rubies of the value of 50,000 dinars, another idol wore as an ornament a sapphire, weighing 400 miskals, and the image itself, when melted, yielded 98 miskals of pure gold. We found besides a hundred silver idols representing as many camel loads.’ Mahmud encountered the same wonders in all the cities he passed through. On the expedition which he made in 1024, chiefly for the purpose of destroying the temple of Somnāth in Gujarāt, he found a wonderful religious edifice whose fifty-six pillars were covered with plates of gold and had precious stones scattered all about them; thousands of statues of gold and silver surrounded the sanctuary.