Indian Painting under the Mughals, A.D. 1550 to A.D. 1750 c15.33

c15.33

From these interesting sidelights on the art we may turn to the school itself, as it was conducted under these favourable conditions. Many of Jahangir’s court artists were those who had worked under his father at Fathpur Sikri, nevertheless there were some important changes, especially in the Persian element. The two pioneers of the movement, Abdus Samad and Mir Sayyid Ali, had died, and the Kalmack artist, Farrukh Beg, was now the leader of the school. Jahangir had a great opinion of him, and, on the occasion of the marriage celebrations of the heir-apparent, records that ‘two thousand rupees were given to Farrukh Beg, the painter, who is unrivalled in the age’. He was not, however, the only Central Asian artist at the court, for the rising school had been reinforced by two painters from Samarqand—Muhammad Nadir and Muhammad Murad—both excellent portrait painters, especially in the process of black outline termed the *siyāhī qalam*. An example of the former’s handiwork may be studied on Plate XVI; the strong drawing that both these artists showed bore fruit in the improved outline that is apparent in the pictures of Jahangir’s reign. Although Persians continued to arrive in Hindustan to fill various official appointments under the Government for many years to come, the two artists from Samarqand are, with one unimportant exception in the reign of Shah Jahan, the last foreign artists of whom we have any record at the court of the Mughals. They appear to be the final link with the parent art of Persia; from now onward the Mughal school cast off its leading strings, and progressed unaided to the end. But with these foreign artists may be grouped several Muhammadan painters, who were probably not entirely of Indian parentage. Prominent among them was Abu’l-Hasan, who was of Persian extraction, the son of Aqa Riza from Herat, both of whom have been already mentioned in connexion with this art under Akbar. Jahangir had a great opinion of the younger painter, as he writes that he ‘was honoured with the title of Nadir uz-Zaman, because he drew the picture of my accession as the frontispiece to the Jahangir-nama, and brought it to me. As it was worthy of all praise, he received endless favours. His work was perfect, and his picture is one of the *chefs-d’œuvre* of the age. At the present time he has no equal or rival. If at this day the masters ‘Abdu’l-Hayy and Bihzad were alive, they would have done him justice.’ Few pictures by Abu’l-Hasan appear to have survived, but that on Plate XVII, Fig. 1, bears a minute inscription which may refer to this artist. It is a delicate piece of work, the background is a very dark green, almost black, and the figure of the old pilgrim telling his beads, as he laboriously makes his way with the aid of his staff, fully bears out Jahangir’s eulogy on his favourite painter’s skill. The miniature is completed by a floral border, not included in the reproduction, which makes the whole a very attractive work of art.