Indian Painting under the Mughals, A.D. 1550 to A.D. 1750 c14.24

Language: English

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The pictures of the Amir Hamzah, with a few others which have been preserved, reveal the character of the art of painting under the Mughals at this early stage. In the main it was Persian, an offshoot of the Safavid school, to which it showed a close affinity, as it was the handiwork of artists trained in the traditions of Bihzad. Mir Sayyid Ali’s illustrations of the Persian classic are very much in the style that he learnt as a young man in Tabriz. They are larger because of his patron’s somewhat grandiose ideas, and they are on cloth because, as explained elsewhere, paper in India was not easily obtained. Plate IX is another example of a painting executed in Hindustan towards the middle of the sixteenth century, and it is of the same general character. The man on horseback, a Turkoman in face and dress, is the Amir Shaikh Hasan Noyan, a *wāli* (official) of Baghdad, and the picture is sufficiently Persian in appearance to suggest that it might have been painted under the supervision of Sultan Muhammad himself in his studio at Tabriz. But a closer study shows that there is something in this work which is not Safavid; in some way it is reminiscent of the Rājput style, vaguely suggestive of an Indian environment. It is impossible not to admire the feeling of breadth in the landscape portion of this early example of painting under the Mughals, although the picture as a whole is very much more Persian than Indian.

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Plate X is a picture probably of the period corresponding to the preceding, to which almost the same remarks apply, except that in the lower portion more of the Indian element is discernible. The rustic scene of the herdsman with his cows and buffaloes, and his wife and child in the lean-to shelter, is plainly of Rājput origin. But the remainder of the work is foreign in its treatment. It is an illustration taken from the *Haft Paikar*, or Seven Images, a poem comprising seven tales told by the seven favourites of King Bahram Gur. The story here portrayed is a long one. It tells of a sheep dog, who took to killing the flock he was trusted to guard; when this was discovered, he was suspended from a tree—crucified—and on his treacherous conduct the story-teller proceeds to moralize. Another miniature of considerable historical importance, which it is possible to date with a fair degree of accuracy, is reproduced on Plate XI. It represents the arrival of the famous musician and singer, Tansen, at the court of Akbar, an event which took place in 1562, when the emperor was twenty years of age. As the picture was most probably painted at this time, it throws some valuable light on the state of the art of painting at a somewhat obscure period of its evolution. It is an excellent illustration of the transition from the Persian to the Mughal style, and exemplifies in the most marked manner the beginnings of the fusion of the former with the indigenous art of the Hindus.

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In its general scheme, in its architecture, and in its decorative detail, it is essentially Persian; while in its figures, in some of the foliage, and in its atmosphere, there is much that can only be styled Rājput. It is a brilliant piece of colouring, enriched with much gold. Tansen, with a small group of musicians, is seen below the emperor in the left centre of the picture. That the painter of this miniature borrowed largely from the work of Bihzad is shown by the general scheme of his picture, which repeats in many respects a favourite composition of the great master of the Persian school. The graceful but effeminate architecture, the plan of the garden, the cypress trees and the almond blossom, the ornamental pond and fountain, the high retaining wall in the foreground, with the doorkeeper at the gate leaning on his staff, all these have been taken bodily from one of Bihzad’s motifs, and adapted to suit an Indian scene. The colour-scheme is from the same source. But imposed on this Persian basis there is much that is Indian; the figures are more personal, the doorkeeper is clearly a study from life, the elephant is drawn only as an Indian could draw this animal; the realistic touch is visible in the sais putting his arm over the neck of his horse to caress it; in the garden the less formal and native plantain and banyan mingle with the stiff and decorative Persian trees; all these details suggest that the picture was produced in an Indian environment.

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Added to this it conveys the impression that it is a reduced mural painting: in the treatment of the vertical planes, in the relation of the figures to the background, in its defined contours, and in the ‘largeness’ of the composition generally, the art of the wall-decorator seems disclosed. Who was the actual painter, can only be a matter of conjecture; and whether it was the work of a Persian artist influenced by the expansive paintings he saw about him in Hindustan, or whether it was an attempt of one of these Hindu mural decorators to adapt his style to a Persian miniature, is an open question. In either case it is significant of the state of painting under the Mughals during the first fifteen years of Akbar’s reign. Plates XII and XIII illustrate the art of painting at about the same time, or a little later, and are even more Persian in their general character. The former is a portion of the large painting on cotton cloth reproduced on Plate LX, the subject of which is the ‘Princes of the House of Timur’, and includes early portraits of Babur, Humayun, and Akbar. The latter depicts the chivalrous Eraj, a prince who figures prominently in the legendary period of Persian history. From these different examples it will be seen that although the new form of painting had obtained a foothold, there was little headway made while the country was in the throes of reconstruction; at the same time the movement was replete with potentialities.

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On the one hand, attached to the Mughal court was a small, but very active, group of Persian painters practising their art according to the traditions of Bihzad, but nevertheless quite prepared to utilize in their pictures anything good they saw in the handiwork of the Indian craftsmen. On the other hand, there were Hindu painters, men who for generations had specialized in wall-decoration, but who were ready to adapt the skill acquired by centuries of experience in this method to the production of miniatures in the style approved by the ruling power.