Indian Painting under the Mughals, A.D. 1550 to A.D. 1750 c20.2

c20.2

PORTRAITURE is a prominent feature in much of the art of Asia, but nowhere was it more highly developed than in the painting of the Mughals. The ruling dynasty specially encouraged it, and every collection of note contains frequent representations of the emperors and their courts. It was from their Mongol ancestors that they received this desire for pictures of themselves, as the Central Asian Khans early took a keen delight in portraiture. In their most primitive state these nomadic tribes of the Yenisei carved rude effigies in stone, numbers of which are to be seen in remote parts of Mongolia to the present day. When the same uncouth people, emerging from their desert environment, came into contact with more civilized races they soon seized on the local artists and ordered them to copy their features. It was the primitive mind of the Mongols (only recently attained to power) which caused them to show such pleasure in portraiture. They were the ‘new rich’ of their age, childishly delighted in everything that was uncommon, and, after the manner of all simple people, especially interested in representations of themselves as sovereign lords surrounded by evidences of their regal state. Plate I illustrates the manner in which they liked to be portrayed, but in other scenes, such as fighting and feasting, in drinking bouts, or killing and trampling on their enemies, they are often shown in the pictures of the Mongolian school. Previously they had only their own rough natural materials and indifferent talent to meet their needs, but as conquerors of cultured and artistic people like the Chinese it was not long before they brought into their service the famous painters of the Yuan dynasty. Of these, especially as portraitists, there are many wonderful accounts, but none is more graphic than that of Ibn Battuta, a Muhammadan traveller who found himself in the year 1347 at the Mongol court in China. In the course of a eulogy on the artistic nature of the Chinese people generally, he goes on to state that