[Pramāṇa](https://indike.org/pramana/) › [Studies](https://indike.org/pramana/ins) › [Architecture and art](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.art) › [Indian Painting under the Mughals, A.D. 1550 to A.D. 1750](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.art.brown-1924) › c19.39 # Indian Painting under the Mughals, A.D. 1550 to A.D. 1750 c19.39 Indian Painting under the Mughals, A.D. 1550 to A.D. 1750 c19.39 - **Language:** English ### [c19.39](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.art.brown-1924.c19.39) It may be contended that, although the Mughal painter showed considerable feeling for aerial perspective, his knowledge of this science in its linear aspect leaves something to be desired. The picture last described is an illustration of the difficulties he encountered in representing architecture, and buildings generally, according to his own indigenous interpretation of receding lines and planes. A study of the art of the East demonstrates that the oriental had his own system of perspective, just as he had his own ideas on chiaroscuro. In both these aspects of his work, however, the oriental artist was in complete accord with his oriental spectator; they understood one another thoroughly, because they were in communication with one another by means of the same pictorial language. Perspective and chiaroscuro corresponded to the grammar of that language, the artist told his story in his own tongue, and it was fully comprehended by those of his own kind to whom it was addressed. To represent ‘on the flat’ a subject of many complicated planes any expedient may be adopted by the artist so long as it is intelligible to the spectator, and accepted by him in the same spirit. In the West the artist obtains his perspective by scientific methods and his chiaroscuro by high lights and cast shadows. The oriental preferred to translate perspective effects by the artistic method rather than the scientific, and avoided the difficulty of representing shadows by leaving them out altogether. As long as the result is a work of art and appreciated as such by those to whom it appeals, any form of convention may be employed by the painter in his endeavour to give suitable expression to his artistic feelings. That the Mughal artist could on occasion make use of perspective in a very able manner is proved by Plate XLV, Fig. 1, which shows a portion of a miniature dating from later than Jahangir’s reign, where a group of cavalry is seen descending a steep incline. Any artist who could willingly undertake such a difficult subject is worthy of our admiration, and that he has succeeded in his task there is no shadow of doubt. The fidgety sideways motion of the two leading horses as they find themselves on the edge of the slope, and the caution expressed in the backs of the two in the rear, not to mention the sense of foreshortening in the drawing of both horses and riders, are unusually well rendered. - [Previous: c19.38](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.art.brown-1924.c19.38) - [Next: c19.40](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.art.brown-1924.c19.40) - [Up: c19](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.art.brown-1924.c19) --- Source: [https://indike.org/pramana/ins.art.brown-1924.c19.39](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.art.brown-1924.c19.39) · Pramāṇa