Indian Painting under the Mughals, A.D. 1550 to A.D. 1750 c22.39

c22.39

When the Mughal artist began the actual painting he first applied a thin coat of white colour over the entire surface of the paper; through this the black outline drawing already described was faintly visible. This outline under the white priming served as a guide to the artist in the next stage of *rang āmezī* or colouring. He began this by painting in those parts of his picture which required the secondary or mixed colours, following with the white, and after that the yellows, or *gul pumbah*. Any combinations of red (*gulābī*) were then added, and the whole was outlined, while the last process of all was the application of the gold. The outlining was sometimes done throughout in a dark neutral tint, but many of the Akbari artists demarcated each colour with a much lower shade of the same pigment, a deep red outline for pink, indigo or ultramarine for blue, and so forth. Painting in the gold was a delicate operation, the preparation of the material for this purpose requiring considerable skill. Gold leaf was first obtained by beating out the metal in the usual manner. Fragments of the leaf were then pounded with sand in a mortar until the whole formed a fine dust. The sand was removed by washing, and the gold was made ready to be applied to the paper by the addition of glue. When it was quite dry on the picture it was burnished with the tusk of a boar. All these processes of the painting having been completed it was customary to burnish the whole of it again, but this time the miniature was laid face downwards on a smooth surface, and the polished agate applied only to the reverse side of the paper. No final coat of varnish was used as has been described by some writers, this mistake having probably arisen from the fact that it was always applied over the painting on papier mâché, which was really a separate craft, although similar in some respects to the art of miniature painting.