Indian Painting under the Mughals, A.D. 1550 to A.D. 1750 c19.17.3

c19.17.3

After the artist had introduced into his picture the main constructional lines indicated above, it was not difficult to group about these the figures which formed the living element in the subject. One type of architectural setting, frequently observed in the earlier pictures, shows a palace in which both the exterior and interior are visible at the same time, a kind of isometric projection, the spectator being elevated so that he looks over the retaining wall into the courtyard with the emperor seated in a pavilion in the centre. Outside this wall are the servants and attendants, while always in the foreground in one corner is a doorway with a bearded doorkeeper on guard. An example of this conventional scheme may be studied on Plate XI; it is, however, a traditional composition, inherited from the Persian master Bihzad, and employed by him in several of his pictures. In these architectural compositions, exception may be taken to their excessive formality, but in all art the Mughal specially admired symmetry even of the most severe order; in his buildings, in his gardens, and, as we see, in his pictures, every element was balanced by another element which constituted its *jawāb*, or ‘answer’, and to bring about this balance was the artist’s principal aim.