Indian Painting under the Mughals, A.D. 1550 to A.D. 1750 c19.9

c19.9

sensitive outline of the former is that of Blake, while the modulated contour of the latter is that of Holbein. It is not difficult to see whence the Mughal art obtained this calligraphic quality. As we have already stated, in China, Persia, and Mughal India the skilled writer was considered superior to the painter. Both craftsmen in China worked with the brush. But Persia, which took its outline from China, wrote with the reed-pen, and the difference in the implement employed explains the difference in the character of each country’s line. When this line travelled to India after a time it shed still more of its calligraphic expression. It lost much of it in the hands of the Indian craftsmen to whom the art of calligraphy had little meaning. While, therefore, the painting of the Mughal school shows clear traces of this affinity with the script that accompanied it, when the art had reached its maturity the calligraphic outline became less emphatic and ceased to be an outstanding feature as in the painting of Persia and the Far East.