Indian Painting under the Mughals, A.D. 1550 to A.D. 1750 c19.49

c19.49

But no subject, however unusual, was considered outside the range of the Mughal painter’s art, as any survey of the miniatures of the time will speedily prove. At one period pictures of priests and religious mendicants were much in vogue, of which Plate LI is an excellent example. This painting has been much damaged, and also clumsily restored, but enough remains to make an interesting illustration. It is a night scene, and most of the light on the faces of those engaged in what appears to be a religious discussion is thrown from a candle in the foreground. A picture of a group of religious mendicants seated under trees by the wayside is shown on Plate LII ; it is remarkable for its figure-drawings and the expression on the faces of some of these wandering *sādhūs*. Representations of the female form, or at least good examples of it, are not a pronounced feature of Mughal painting, for reasons which will be explained in the chapter on portraiture. Such reasons apply mainly, however, to the likenesses of the higher-class women ; of the ordinary musicians and similar female performers at the court functions, there are several good drawings, as for instance the group on Plate XLVII. To show that the Mughal artist could on occasion rise to great heights in this little-touched field, the picture of the two girls dancing, on Plate LVII, Fig. 1, is introduced. They are performing a movement called the *cha-cha*, or see-saw, in the course of which they hold hands in the manner shown and circulate eight times. It is said to have been originally a Hindu dance but taken over by the Mughals ; the artist will see in this picture something that reminds him of the rhythm of the female figures on an early Greek vase.