Indian Painting under the Mughals, A.D. 1550 to A.D. 1750 c14.9

c14.9

elegant than any other, and versified the Risala-i-Validiyya of his Holiness. Then there is his Waqā'i‘, or Turki *Memoirs*, written in a simple, unaffected, yet very pure style. He excelled in music and other arts. Indeed no one of his family before him ever possessed such talents, nor did any of his race perform such amazing exploits or experience such strange adventures.' Added to this he was a learned philosopher, a mighty hunter, an enthusiastic traveller, an insatiable sightseer, an eager student of the habits and appearance of animals and birds, and especially devoted to flowers, gardens, and the beauties of nature. And above all he was—there is no other word for it—a born artist—as shown on almost every page of his own memoirs. Not that Babur was able to express his artistic ideas in form or colour, although one may recognize a note of regret that such technical skill was denied him; but at all times and seasons his love of scenery, flowers, and natural effects impels him to describe these with a sympathy and intimacy which is a sure sign of the aesthetic mind. If he had not the craftsman's trained hand, he had the artist's eye which enabled him to write so feelingly of the beauty of the camp-fires twinkling below him, like stars reflected in a murky sea, or the mingling of the yellow and red blooms of the *arghwan*, so that he knew no sight in the world to be compared to them. Even when in the direst need he could always find solace in the exquisite growth of some flower, or fruit, or tree, as on a perilous occasion when his life was in immediate danger he lingered in an orchard to write ‘one apple-tree had been in excellent bearing. On some branches five or six scattered leaves still remained, and exhibited a beauty which the painter, with all his skill, might attempt in vain to portray’. Here undoubtedly was the aesthetic spirit, which, given opportunity, might have achieved great things. But Babur lived before his time. His life was spent in the tented field, with little prospects of any prolonged period of leisure in which he might have given rein to his artistic inclinations. A picture of him, dictating his memoirs to a scribe, is reproduced on Plate V, but this was most probably painted some seventy years after his death, as there are no definite records of any artists carrying on their craft at the Mughal court during his reign. He died in 1530 at the comparatively early age of forty-seven, in the midst of the task of consolidating his empire, worn out with his exertions, and when the fruits of his labours were almost within his grasp.