Indian Painting under the Mughals, A.D. 1550 to A.D. 1750 c18.39

c18.39

Lal is another artist mentioned in the *A’in*, and of his handiwork there are one or two specimens in which he had had no collaborator. He also is responsible for twenty-nine illustrations in the Jaipur *Razmnāma*, but few, if any, of these are his own unaided work. In comparing one of his pictures in the *Bahāristan* with another in Mr. Perrins’s *Khamsah*, the similarity between the two is so marked that one suspects him of being an artist of limited originality; the resemblance may, however, be only a coincidence. Both are shown on Plate XL. Fig. 1 is from the *Bahāristan*, and illustrates the story of a friendship that existed between a king and a *faqir*, who are both seen in the centre of the picture. Fig. 2 is from the *Khamsah*. In both miniatures the general effect of the colouring is bright and vivacious, but a little confused. The landscape, and the background altogether, is very charming, the rocks, trees, and castellated buildings lead up to the pearly glow of the distance, which itself merges into a gold-dust sky. The figures in brightly hued costumes show up well against a lemon yellow ground, probably the artist’s method of expressing the effect of sunlight on desert earth.