Indian Painting under the Mughals, A.D. 1550 to A.D. 1750 c20.62

c20.62

As in all art work, some of these preliminary studies are superior to the completed likeness, where the laboured finish has not been an improvement on the original sketch. A typical Mughal portrait, however, fully coloured and with a rich but harmonious background, is one of the most pleasing phases of the Indian miniaturist’s art. The painter put his finest efforts into the face, so that in the outline of the features and in the fineness of his drawing generally he has been rarely excelled. It is an interesting study to trace the evolution of this facial outline as expressed at different periods in the various schools of painting in the East. In early Chinese painting, and in the contemporary frescoes of India, a red outline is usually employed but with the eyes and eyebrows often painted in black. The same method is seen in the later art of Eastern Turkestan, while in the earlier Persian miniatures it became very marked, especially in the paintings of the Safavid school, where the red outline is accentuated in the nose, lips, and ears, with the eyes and eyebrows always an intense black. This formula was brought to Hindustan in the train of the Mughals, but it soon disappeared when the Indian painters threw off the Persian leading-strings and evolved their own style. The outlines of the features as drawn by the Mughal artist are usually in a fine grey or neutral colour, and he rarely employed coloured conventions as did many schools of Asiatic art. Fine as a hair, as clear and definite as it is possible for human hand and eye to make it, the line of the features in these miniatures is a remarkable piece of execution. Although a late example, Plate XXIX illustrates the Indian painter’s complete control over his brush when delineating a face in profile. But excellent though the outline is, it is equalled by the subtle modelling of the features themselves, so essential to the life and character of the person depicted. This was obtained by delicate and carefully blended tones, applied with great precision, in order to reproduce the different qualities of cutaneous surface which cover the hard structures or soft tissues of the face. And over all his technique, blending it and putting life into the whole, was the intuition of the artist himself, that vision which enabled him not only to see into the heart of the man, but to convey by his picture the impression that the spectator too saw him with the same penetrating eye.