Indian Painting under the Mughals, A.D. 1550 to A.D. 1750 c21.3

Language: English

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During the long course of its history no date has been more momentous to India than the dawn of the sixteenth century. At this particular time two entirely different forces were appearing on the horizon, in almost opposite directions, each in its turn to spread over the whole of the sub-continent, and profoundly to affect its future. On the north-west frontier were the Mughals under Babur, whose progress and whose influences on the art of the country have been already dealt with in the preceding chapters. On the south-west seaboard the Portuguese navigator, Vasco da Gama, had landed, and with his arrival India’s direct intercourse with Europe began. What this intercourse has led to may be seen in the constitution of the country at the present day, with which, however, we are not concerned. But the effect that such contact had on the arts of India, and specifically on the painting of the Mughals, is a necessary portion of the present study. Previous to the appearance of the Portuguese ships off Calicut in 1498, indirect communication between India and the West had been maintained for a very long time. By land it was conducted over caravan routes across Persia, and by sea the Venetians through Arab bottoms had established a thriving trade with the merchants of Gujarāt.

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But in the relations that took place in the Middle Ages between the two continents there appears to have been little interchange of art, neither Europe nor India having yet arrived at that stage when the decorative designs of the one appear to have had any appreciable effect on those of the other. When, however, the Portuguese during the sixteenth century opened up communication by establishing factories at Calicut, Cochin, and Goa, the ‘Europeanization’ of the country began, and it was not long before this revealed itself in Indian art. The first Indian potentate to display an interest in the handiwork of the European craftsman was the Mughal emperor Akbar. Comparatively early in his reign, in 1572, he had spent a year in the conquest of Gujarāt, in close proximity to some of the Western seaports, where he made the acquaintance of the Portuguese merchants and learned something about them and their affairs. The Mughal ruler appears to have been impressed by their knowledge, for in 1577 he is reported to have retained a Portuguese officer in his service. Europeans were not, however, unknown in the cities of the Mughals, for there was a fair sprinkling of wandering Poles and ‘ Muscovites ’, Greeks and Levantines, in the bazaars of Agra and Delhi even at this time. In the south of India, but outside the sphere of Mughal influence, many more were beginning to arrive, as not only trade but the Christian religion brought by the Jesuit priests was making steady progress.

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With the extension of these missions appear the first known examples of Western art in India. In 1570 one of the priests at Goa was Brother Aranha of Lisbon, a skilled artist and versatile craftsman, who designed and built many of the original Christian churches in the locality, decorating them with religious pictures painted by his own hands. Of the Jesuits’ activities in the southern part of the peninsula, and particularly of some of the occidental ‘ novelties ’ that they had brought with them, Akbar seems to have obtained certain vague information, which speedily grew into a desire for more definite knowledge. In 1578, therefore, he specially deputed an agent of his court, of the name of Haji Habibullah, to proceed to Goa for the express purpose of making investigations. The emissary’s instructions were quite definite: he was ordered to find out personally all he could about the arts and industries that were being practised there, and if possible to bring back examples; further, he was supplied with ample funds for the purchase of any articles of interest, and if for any reason these were unobtainable he was accompanied by a small staff of expert craftsmen who were to make copies of them, so as not to return empty-handed. When the company arrived back at the Mughal court after their long expedition, the emperor was much gratified with the manner in which the Haji had carried out his commission.

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Not only had he obtained many objects of great curiosity, but his craftsmen had studied and made themselves efficient in many newly acquired arts; and, most important of all, he had actually engaged a number of Europeans to come and carry on their trades at the court of the ‘ Great Mogul ’. Unfortunately the details that have survived of the results of Akbar’s enterprise are meagre, although it is recorded that one article which received the special admiration of the emperor was a church organ ‘ like a great box the size of a man, played by a European sitting inside ’. One of the court artists, Mādho Khanazād, subsequently introduced the instrument into a picture he painted of a musician (Plato) charming a large concourse of wild beasts who lie helpless around him. It forms one of the illustrations in Mr. Dyson Perrins’s copy of the *Khamsah* (fol. 298, Plate 40).¹