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Jain Miniature Paintings from Western India c10.s3: Treatment of Nature

Jain Miniature Paintings from Western India c10.s3

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Treatment of Nature

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The love of nature is a characteristic feature of Indian mind which was capable of developing the highest thought in the quietitude of nature. The sylvan quiet of the forest where nature reigned supreme was conducive to the highest metaphysical speculations of the great Indian Seers. The sublime beauty of nature even proved a healing balm to the mind disturbed with the calamities of human life. Exiled from his kingdom and deprived of his rightful succession, Rāma found consolation at the sight of the Chitrakūṭa. With the eyes of an artist, he saw the Chitrakūṭa breaking into thousand peaks and the rocks assuming forms resplendent in the shades of gold, silver, purple and azure; their slopes appearing like a green banner aglow with golden embroidery and covered with the carpet of languishing multi-coloured flowers.⁵⁸ Again, haunted by the sorrow of separation from his wife, Rāma saw in the sombre cloud-sky, without moon and stars, the state of his own suffering mind.⁵⁹

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⁵⁸ Rāmāyaṇa, II. 94.

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⁵⁹ Ib., lv, 27.

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It is unfortunate, however, that such understanding of nature as we have described above is not found in the rare examples of Indian painting which have survived. In Ajaṇṭā painting, architecture dominates the scene, though decorative motifs have been borrowed from nature. The landscape rarely represented at Ajaṇṭā may be classified into two groups. (1) The elements which appear separately, such as trees, flowers, plants, etc., which are represented in a realistic manner. The rocks, however, are represented conventionally. (2) Their artistic groupings in the interest of the composition and perspective show that the painters at Ajaṇṭā were already acquainted with the problems of three-quarter dimension in relation to space. The architectural details are introduced to bring coherence in the groupings, and at Ajaṇṭā they may be called “architectural landscape.” All these architectural details are represented, as if they were to be seen by a person from the housetop. This point of view in perspective gave liberty to the artists even to represent the details which, according to the laws of ordinary perspective, should be hidden from view.

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To supplement our meagre information of the ancient Indian landscape painting we have to fall back on the various rules laid down in the Viṣṇudharmottara for landscape painting. It lays down that in painting the traditional six seasons, the summer has to be associated with a deep pool, languid men, the deer seeking the shade of trees, and the buffaloes wallowing in mud. The rainy season has an appropriate landscape with the sky overcast with heavy clouds through which the lightning flashes, and which are at times beautified with the rainbow. In this season, birds are shown perched on trees, and the lions and tigers are shown taking shelter in caves. The appropriate landscape for autumn has the trees heavily laden with fruits, the earth covered with ripening corn-fields, and the tanks beautified by lotuses and geese. The landscape at the approach of winter has frosty horizon, the harvested fields, and the ground wetted with dew-drops. In the winter landscape, the sky is covered with a heavy fog, men are shown shivering, while the crows and elephants are jubilant.⁶⁰ Then certain broad principles of landscape painting are laid down. The sky should be shown without any special colour, and swarming with birds. In the night, however, it should be covered with stars. The earth should be shown with the luxuriant growth of plant life. The mountain should be represented by the conglomeration of rocks, peaks, trees, waterfalls and snakes. A forest should be represented by the thick growth of various species of trees and swarming with birds and beasts. The water should be shown in conjunction with innumerable fishes, tortoises, lotus flowers and other aquatic animals and plants.⁶¹

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⁶⁰ Stella Kramrisch, The Viṣṇudharmottara, III, pp. 58.

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⁶¹ Ib., p. 57.

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In the description of the landscape above such a realism is aimed at for whose successful fulfilment extensive surface of the wall, and not the restricted surface of the palm-leaf or wooden panels, must have been required. How much of the above instructions were capable of fulfilment at the hand of the artists, and how much remained only a theory, we are unable to say in the absence of documents. But it was by no means an impossibility, looking at the great technical achievement of the artists of Ajaṇṭā. Anyway, the dream of the gorgeous landscape described above is realised to a certain extent in Rājpūt and Pahāṛī paintings of the 17th and 18th centuries.

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Symbolism in Indian art also solved many difficult problems of landscape painting. There the rivers may be represented in the form of a woman standing on her appropriate vehicle, carrying a pitcher in her hands and her knees bending; there is the impression of a peak on the forehead of the human personification of a mountain; the sea in human form carries a pitcher and the water replaces the halo; the tank is represented by a pitcher.⁶²

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⁶² Ib., p. 56.

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In Western Indian miniatures of the 14th century and later, the realistic tendencies of the early landscape are replaced by purely decorative conception. The monochrome red background in these miniatures leaves no place for the converging perspective. The figures are not disposed one behind the other as in the contemporary Bengali paintings of the 11th and 12th centuries, but are superimposed. The heights of the figures do not depend on the real dimensions of the subjects depicted, nor are their representations governed by the position of the objects in space, but on the importance of the figures in the composition. Thus, the height of a man at times is greater than that of an elephant, trees or a building, because the former represents a Jina or a prince and hence his importance must be emphasised by enlarging the figure. In such a primitive and highly conventional view-point of the perspective, landscape finds little space. In the miniatures of the *Subāhu Kathā* (Figs. 51-52), we find for the first time certain elements of landscape, such as trees, birds and hills, but their treatment is conventional. In the 14th century cloth-painting of the *Pañchatīrthī* (Figs. 177-185), however, blue hills edged with white and studded with trees is a definite improvement in the conventional landscape. In the fifteenth century miniatures, the following features of the landscape may be marked :-

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Fig. 182

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Fig. 183

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The sky is represented by conventionally treated clouds painted on red ground. The sun and the moon are represented, the former by a gilded disc and the latter by a golden crescent. The water is represented by basket patterns, sometimes associated with aquatic birds 63 (Fig. 188) and lotus flowers or fish and other aquatic animals. 64 A series of sinuous triangles (Fig. 148), 65 or piled up arches represent the mountain. It is associated with animals, such as the deer, the tiger, the hare, etc. 67 The most artistic representation of a mountain is shown in an illustrated manuscript of the *Kālpasūtra* reproduced by Prof. Norman Brown.⁶⁸ The bright golden ball of the rising sun, encompassed with the double rim in blue and white against a red background, shines just above the variegated mountain peak. The deep shadows fill the cavities, and a solitary bird is shown flying through the mist hanging over the mountain.

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⁶⁸ Norman Brown, *Ib.*, Fig. 38.

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In Western Indian miniatures, trees are conventionally treated. The foliage is often composed of a series of circles or bouquets. Such trees give the impression of an umbrella. Their white or gilded trunks are covered with fine sinuous lines, perhaps simulating their barks. In another type, the leaves are painted separately, their sinuous branches and trunks are very delicate, and their knots are delineated with a few curved lines 69 (Fig. 73). In the third type, the tree-top is thickly covered with indigo leaves and the flowers in the shape of rosettes and buds are picked out in red 70 The coconut (Fig. 102) 71 and the palm trees (Fig. 101)⁷² and the mango 73 and the plantain trees are often represented realistically. Very vew architectural details are represented. A pair of columns suffice to represent a palace. In the *Pañchatīrthīpaṭ*, however, elaborate designs of Jain temples are given. It is quite possible that the lack of architectural details in Western Indian painting is due to the lack of space at the disposal of the artist.

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⁶³ *Jaina-chitra Kalpadruma*, Fig. 257.

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⁶⁴ Norman Brown, *Miniature paintings of the Jaina Kalpasūtra*, Fig. 30.

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⁶⁵ *Jaina-chitra Kalpadruma*, Fig. 186.

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⁶⁶ Norman Brown, *Ib.*, Fig. 33.

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⁶⁷ Mehta, *Gujarati painting in the 15th century*, No. 26.

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⁶⁹ *Jaina-chitra Kalpadruma*, Fig. 110.

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⁷⁰ *Ib.*, Fig. 112.

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⁷¹ *Ib.*, Fig. 196.

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⁷² *Ib.*, Fig. 181.

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