Indian Painting under the Mughals, A.D. 1550 to A.D. 1750 c14.24.4

c14.24.4

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.