Indian Painting under the Mughals, A.D. 1550 to A.D. 1750 c14.47

c14.47

The golden period of Akbar’s school of painting was that in which the artists connected with it were working at Fathpur Sikri, when the emperor was holding his court there surrounded by those whose scholarship was to bring such lustre to his name. Beginning about 1570, this school continued for fifteen years, when, in 1585, Akbar left the city he had built so lavishly, and, except for one flying visit in 1601, he never returned to take up his residence there again. Gradually the life of Fathpur Sikri departed, and although its majesty was temporarily revived by the occasional sojourn of a subsequent monarch within its columned halls, it soon sank into silence and decay. For the remaining twenty years of his reign Akbar made his head-quarters principally at Lahore; and, although a few of the state artists were generally in attendance there, the majority of them were transferred to Agra to carry on their work in the palace-fort of that city. It is recorded that in his new capital in the Punjab the emperor employed some of his personal staff of artists in their favourite art of wall-decoration, for the interior of the Lahore palace was freely ornamented with coloured scenes, some of which have been referred to by European writers. In particular, in the rooms of the *zenana* the subjects appear to have been of an unusual order, as they are stated to have consisted of ‘many pictures of angels, as well as fearsome ones of devils with long tails, horns, &c.’ Even from this meagre account, which is by Fitch, one of the first Englishmen to arrive at the Mughal capital, it is just possible to identify the scene here alluded to as one not uncommon in Persian painting, and usually described as the visit of the Queen of Sheba to the court of King Solomon. In the Persian conception of this episode, winged female figures always occupy the centre of the composition, while around are gathered a number of unearthly creatures whose appearance tallies exactly with the brief but graphic note by this early traveller. The inference derived from this is that the mural decorations at Lahore, at this later date, were similar to those executed previously at Fathpur Sikri, and that the Persian style still found favour where the painter’s art was applied to the surface of the palace walls. Where, however, the painter’s skill was utilized in the illustration of books, and his designs were on a much smaller scale, less of the foreign element is observable. It seems more than probable, therefore, that the art of painting continued to progress on parallel lines, the Persian and Indian styles being employed separately as two distinct methods of expression, until the death of Akbar, in the year 1605.