Indian Painting under the Mughals, A.D. 1550 to A.D. 1750 c19.17.2

c19.17.2

In the other two mounted musicians the artist has not been quite so successful in his portraiture, but that he has caught the sense of action, as shown for instance in the feeling of movement in the fingers of the instrumentalists, cannot be denied. In many other portions of this picture the same conscientious attention to detail is displayed, although as a whole the composition is not exactly arresting. Both groups of figures walking out of, or looking out of, each side of the picture may account for some of this, but it is most probably explained by the artist having quite ingenuously put on his paper the ceremony just as he saw it. Nevertheless, in the more formal subjects of his selection the Mughal artist had an eye to composition, which may be noticed in his interior effects, as for instance in his arrangement of court scenes. He fully realized the value of an architectural feature as the basis of his design, and made use of it in the following manner. Beginning with the emperor on his throne more or less in the centre, he placed a series of buildings in retreating planes in the background, which he balanced with a corresponding succession of terraces and platforms in the foreground. The right-angled lines predominating in such an arrangement harmonized with the right angles of his picture as a whole, and, while such a method is well known among designers as a simple device, it was, in the hands of the Mughal painter, also the most pleasing.