Indian Sculpture and Painting, Illustrated by Typical Masterpieces, with an Explanation of their Motives and Ideals c11: Chapter II. Mogul Secular Art
Indian Sculpture and Painting, Illustrated by Typical Masterpieces, with an Explanation of their Motives and Ideals c11
- Language
- English
Chapter II. Mogul Secular Art
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WE have seen in the last chapter that even in the pre-Mogul period the art of painting was cultivated as a *dilettante* amusement or accomplishment in the courts of Buddhist and Hindu sovereigns, but it was not until the Mogul times that a distinctly secular school of painting, derived originally from Persia, arose in India. In this secularisation of art the Mogul epoch in India may be compared with the Renaissance in Europe.
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The direct origin of this secularisation was the formal prohibition by the Muhammadan law of the representations of animate nature in art. The effect of this law was virtually to suppress the practice of painting and sculpture as fine arts in all countries under Muhammadan rule, from the founding of the Caliphate of Baghdad down to the beginning of the thirteenth century.
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With the decline of the spiritual power of the Caliphs the prohibition ceased to have full effect, but the revival of pictorial art in Persia did not really begin until the overthrow of Arab rule by the Mongols, about the middle of the thirteenth century.
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It is interesting to notice how, both in Europe and in Asia, such rude barbarians as the Mongols, who only revelled in rapine and bloodshed, and marked their progress with monuments of human skulls, were, just like other scavengers of civilisation—the Goths, Vandals, and Huns—the means of moving the intellectual waters and of bringing new inspiration into art.
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The effect of the Mongol invasion on the civilisation of Western Asia is well summarised by Professor E. G. Browne in his "Literary History of Persia."
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"Infinitely destructive and disastrous as it was to life, learning, and civilisation, and especially to the Arab culture, which, as have already seen, maintained itself with such extraordinary vitality in Persia for six centuries, long after the war of Arab conquest had utterly subsided, the Mongol invasion did, perhaps, contain some quickening elements, and the Mongol character, for all its reckless ferocity, some potentialities of good. One of its few good effects was the extraordinary intermixture of remote peoples, resulting in a refreshing of somewhat stagnant mental reservoirs, which it brought about. In Europe it was a cause, if not the chief cause, of the Renaissance, for it thrust the Ottoman Turks out of the obscurity of Khurásán into the prominence of Constantinople, and was thus ultimately responsible for the destruc-
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tion of the Byzantine Empire and the dispersion of the Greeks and their treasures into Europe. . . . And within Asia it brought together, first in conflict and then in consultation, Persians and Arabs with Chinese and Tibetans, and confronted, on terms of equality which had not existed for five or six centuries, the doctors of Islam with Christian monks, Buddhist Lamas, Mongol *bakhshís* or medicine men, and the representatives of other religions and sects" (pp. 441, 442).
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It is very important to remember, also, that from motives of self-interest, and not from any respect for art, these ferocious invaders, who massacred wholesale men, women, and children of the general population, usually spared the artisans and craftsmen, and thus preserved for their own uses the art-traditions of the countries they ravaged and desolated. Skilled craftsmen were always the prizes of war, and when an uncivilised race like the Mongols triumphed over a highly cultivated one the craftsmen of the defeated became the teachers of the victors; this transplantation into a new soil often brought new vigour into art, and was the beginning of great developments. When Timur, the ancestor of the Indian Mogul dynasty, withdrew his hordes from Northern India in 1398, after ravaging it with fire and sword, he took back with him as captives all the masons who had built the famous mosque at Ferozabad, in order that they might build one like it at Samarkand. Thus Indian art fulfilled once more its civilising mission, and when, two and a half centuries later, Timur’s descendant, Shah Jahan, was building the famous Taj Mahal at Agra, some of the principal masons were brought from Samarkand—probably descendants of Timur’s captives.
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The important part which craftsmen, more especially oriental craftsmen, have always played in the world’s history as missionaries of civilisation, culture, and religion, is not generally recognised by bookmen. Even at the present day the Indian craftsman, deeply versed in his *silpa-Sastras*, learned in folk-lore and in national epic literature, is, though excluded from Indian universities—or rather, on that account—far more highly cultured, intellectually and spiritually, than the average Indian graduate. In medieval times the craftsman’s intellectual influence, being creative and not merely assimilative, was at least as great as that of the priest and bookman. The Founder of Christianity was Himself a craftsman, and in those noblest monuments of the Christian faith—the Gothic cathedrals of medieval Europe—we can see that the splendid craftsmen of the Middle Ages preached and practised a religion like their Master’s, pure and undefiled before God, while a self-indulgent and contentious priesthood wrangled over its dogmas.
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It is curious that archæologists, who are so concerned in trying to prove that nearly all Indian art was derived from the West, should seem to be only dimly aware of the immeasurably greater debt which European art and science owe to India, for they very rarely dwell upon it. From the time of the break-up of the Roman Empire, and even some centuries before, down to the days of the Renaissance, there was flowing into Europe a continuous undercurrent of Indian science, philosophy, and art, brought by the art-workers of the East. In the nature of things, what could have been the effect of Alexander’s solitary raid into India, or even the more lasting influence of the Græco-Baktrian kingdom, compared with that of the successive streams of Asiatic invaders (barbarians, if you will) which century after century poured into Europe, bringing with their armies skilled craftsmen as engineers and armourers, followed by artisans of every kind, when, as often happened, a permanent occupation of a country took place?
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Even uncultured marauders, like the Huns and Mongols, brought with them non-combatant craftsmen, to aid them in their attacks on walled towns, and to keep their fighting equipment in order: so that, while the fighting men of East and West were busy in cutting throats, the craftsmen of both sides fraternised in a secret freemasonry, founded on common artistic interests.
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Indian idealism during the greater part of this time was the dominant note in the art of Asia which was thus brought into Europe; and when we find a perfectly oriental atmosphere and strange echoes of Eastern symbolism in the medieval cathedrals of Europe, and see their structural growth gradually blossoming with all the exuberance of Eastern imagery, it is impossible to avoid the conclusion that Gothic architecture and Gothic handicraft owe very much to the absorption by the *bauhütten* of Germany, and other Western craft-guilds, of Asiatic art and science, brought by the thousands of Asiatic craftsmen who entered Europe in the first millennium of the Christian era; a period which in the minds of Europeans is generally a blank because the "Great Powers" were then located in Asia instead of in Europe.
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Byzantine art and Gothic art derived their inspiration from the same source—the impact of Asiatic thought upon the civilisation of the Roman Empire. The first shows its effect upon the art of the Greek and Latin races, the other its influence upon the Romanesque art of the Teutonic and Celtic races. The spirit of Indian idealism breathes in the mosaics of St. Mark’s at Venice, just as it shines in the mystic splendours of the Gothic cathedrals; through the delicate tracery of their jewelled windows, filled with the stories of saints and martyrs; in all their richly sculptured arches, fairy vaulting and soaring pinnacles and spires. The Italian Renaissance marks the reversion of Christian art to the pagan ideals of Greece, and the capture of art by the bookmen, leading to our present dilettantism and archæological views of art.
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When a new inspiration comes into European art it will come again from the East; but what irony there is in the present spectacle of the Christian nations of Europe, in the twentieth century, unconsciously using their influence to paganise the art of Asia!
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To return to the history of Mogul art—the revival of painting in Persia under the Mogul rule was very largely due to the influence of the Chinese schools which, again, owed their inspiration originally to the art of India. In the early centuries of the Christian era the traditions of Indian religious art had been taken into Turkestan and China by Indian Buddhist missionaries and craftsmen, and by Chinese students taught in Indian universities. There they were acclimatised, and by the fusion of Indian idealism with the naturalism of the indigenous schools the modern schools of China and Japan originated, which are now much more familiar to European artists and art-critics than the art of India, to which they owe so much.
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Under this Indian inspiration Chinese painting by the seventh century had reached an extraordinary degree of eminence, far surpassing the contemporary art of Europe. Dr. W. Anderson, in his great work on Japanese and Chinese painting, says:
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“There is, perhaps, no section of art that has been so completely misapprehended in Europe as the pictorial art of China. For us the Chinese painter, past or present, is but a copyist who imitates with laborious and indiscriminating
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exactness whatever is laid before him, rejoices in the display of as many and as brilliant colours as his subject and remuneration will permit, and is only original in the creation of monstrosities. Nothing could be more contrary to fact than this impression. If we omit from consideration the work executed for the foreign market—work which every educated Chinese would disown—the old masters of the Middle Kingdom, who as a body united grandeur of conception with immense power of execution, cared little for elaboration of detail, and except in Buddhist pictures, sought their best effects in the simplicity of black and white, or in the most subdued chromatic harmonies. . . . If we endeavour to compare the pictorial art of China with that of Europe, we must carry ourselves back to the days when the former was in its greatness. It may be safely asserted that nothing produced by the painters of Europe between the seventh and thirteenth centuries approaches within measurable distance of the works of the great Chinese masters who gave lustre to the T'ang, Sung, and Yuën dynasties : nor—to draw a little nearer to modern times—is there anything in the religious art of Cimabue that would not appear tame and graceless by the side of the Buddhistic compositions of Wu-Tao-Tsz', Li Lung-yen, and Ngan Huru. Down to the end of the Southern empire in 1279 A.D., the Chinese were at the head of the world in the art of painting, as in many things besides, and their nearest rivals were their own pupils, the Japanese."¹
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¹ "Pictorial Art in Japan," vol. ii., p. 262.
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The artists of this new Iranian school of painting, revived by an infusion of Indian art-traditions naturalised in China, were the court painters of Babar, the first Mogul Emperor of India, who thus brought them back to the fountain-head of their art. But Mogul painting was, unlike Indian, a purely secular school. The general ban of the fine arts imposed by Islamic law was not entirely removed even by the Mogul emperors, and it continued to have full effect as far as religious art was concerned.
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Painting as a fine art became a diversion for the Mogul emperors and their nobles: the artists of the courts of Akbar, Jahangir and Shah Jahan, both Hindu and Muhammadan, were greatly encouraged in drawing and painting portraits, in illustrating legend and history or contemporary life, both in fresco on the walls of palaces and villas, and in exquisite miniature paintings, usually intended for the illustration of manuscripts. But not even Akbar, who took a most liberal and enlightened view of art, permitted the representation of a human being, or of the Deity, in a mosque or building consecrated to religion; or attempted to revive a school of religious painting. The rule of the Sunna is scrupulously observed in the decoration of the great mosque at Fatehpur Sikri, where Akbar promulgated his new religion, “The Divine Faith.”
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The fresco paintings of the Mogul period, like those of Hindu times, have nearly all perished;
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PLATE LIII
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A WOUNDED LION
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only a few fragments remaining of the decoration of Akbar’s palace at Fatehpur Sikri.¹
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¹ The most interesting of these is a full-length portrait of a lady, painted on a panel inside the building, known as “Miriam’s House,” probably the residence of Mariam Zâmâni, the mother of Jahangir: see “Handbook to Agra and the Taj,” by the author.
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Our present knowledge of Mogul painting is almost entirely derived from the miniature pictures, painted on a very fine Indian or Chinese paper, which in spite of the delicate material have more often survived, as they were frequently carefully preserved in royal libraries or in private collections.
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In the early Mogul times oil-painting was not practised by Indian artists, and it should be understood that these miniature pictures were not as a rule hung on the walls of apartments, or used for decoration, like modern European cabinet pictures. The pictures of the Indian *chitrâsâlas* were always painted directly in the walls in fresco, but these miniature paintings were kept like valuable manuscripts, and only brought out occasionally to be handed round for discussion and criticism; just as in Japan to-day the painted silk scrolls, called *kakemonos*, are displayed one at a time at a tea-party and afterwards carefully packed away. The refined artistic sense of the true Oriental *dilettante* would be outraged by the hideous jumble of heterogeneous pictures which we crowd together in modern exhibitions and use to “decorate” our houses.
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The early Mogul miniatures, or those dating from the time of Babar down to Akbar, nearly all exhibit the stiffness and strongly pronounced mannerisms of the contemporary Persian school to which most of them belong. Evidently the fine arts had sunk to a very low condition in Persia under the influence of the Caliphate of Baghdad, and the impulse brought from China in the thirteenth century had not succeeded in raising the standard above the level of conventional manuscript decoration. For the conventionalism of these paintings is that of a degenerate school which has ceased to look for and love the beauty of animate nature, and relapsed instead into a routine of mechanical formality.
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Especially in the drawing of the human figure we miss entirely the wonderful sincerity and truthfulness in movement and in expression which give an indefinable charm to the conventionalism of the early Indian fresco paintings.
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The Calcutta Art Gallery has, however, some paintings belonging to the Persian school of the early sixteenth century which show that by that time the true spirit of Indian art had begun to assert itself in the Muhammadan world. In the picture of a music party at the Court of Sultan Muhammad Tughlak, painted by Shapur, of Khorrasan in 1534, Plate LIV., we feel again the simple delight in the beauty of Nature, and the whole-hearted desire to be one with it, which breathe in the paintings of Ajanta and the [Figure: PLATE VII
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A NAUTCH PARTY AT THE COURT OF SULTAN MUHAMMAD QUTUB SHAH
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By a Painter of Khorasan]
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A NAUTCH PARTY AT THE COURT OF SULTAN MUHAMMAD TUGLAK
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By Shapur of Khorasan هلیه مبارک شهنشاه اعظم غازی سلطان محمد تغلق قدس روحه دالالسلطنت سنه ۹۷ تحریر شد
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sculptures of Bôrôbudûr. The rhythm of the movement of the figures responding to the rhythm of the colour-scheme, make up a delightful harmony. Though severely conventional in composition, the group of musicians and dancing-girls is yet full of spontaneous grace. Their gentle gaiety and youthful light-heartedness tell us that the artist has penetrated beyond the usual squalid atmosphere of an oriental court; he bids us rejoice with him in life’s unsullied spring-time, and listen to the music of the spheres.
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The drawing of a wounded lion, a fragment of a hunting-scene of the same school and period, recalls the vigour and truth of the ancient sculptures of Nineveh. These, however, do not strictly belong to the Mogul art of India, though they indicate one of the sources of its inspiration. It was not until the time of Akbar and of his son Jahangir, that the Mogul court painters of India began to make an effort to shake off the stiffness and formality of the old Persian school and to draw fresh inspiration from the study of Nature which the Muhammadan law, as interpreted by the Caliphs, had denied them.
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This new departure was due partly, perhaps, to the example of the Hindu painters with whom they came into contact in India, but more to the personal influence and encouragement of the Emperor Akbar himself, who, among his many other intellectual activities, found time to take the most practical interest in promoting the fine arts.
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Abul Fazl, Akbar's Prime Minister and indefatigable biographer, in the courtly language of the "Aîn-i-Akbâri," refers to the prejudices of the orthodox Muhammadans of his time, and the Emperor's more liberal views:¹
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¹ Blochman's translation, vol. i., pp. 107 *et seq.*
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"I have to notice that the observing of the figures of objects and the making of likenesses of them are, for a well-regulated mind, a source of wisdom, and an antidote against the poison of ignorance. Bigoted followers of the letter of the law are hostile to the art of painting, but their eyes now see the truth.
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"One day, at a private party of friends, His Majesty, who had conferred on several the pleasure of drawing near him, remarked: 'There are many that hate painting, but such men I dislike. It appears to me as if a painter had quite peculiar means of recognising God, for a painter, in sketching anything that has life, and in devising the limbs one after another, must come to feel that he cannot bestow personality upon his work, and is thus forced to thank God, the Giver of life, and will thus increase his knowledge.'
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"Akbar," says Abul Fazl, "had from his earliest youth shown a great interest in painting, and given it every encouragement, regarding it both as a means of study and as an amusement.
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"The works of all painters are weekly laid before His Majesty by the Dârôghahs and the clerks; he then confers rewards according to excellence of workmanship, or increases the monthly salaries. Much progress was made in the [Figure: PLATE IV. A PORTRAIT OF LA’LIQ KHAN]
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A PORTRAIT OF YTIKAD KHAN
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commodities required by painters, and the correct prices of such articles carefully ascertained. The mixture of colours has especially been improved. The pictures thus received a hitherto unknown finish.
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"Most excellent painters are now to be found, and masterpieces worthy of a Bihzad (a famous painter of the court of Shah Ismail-i-Cafawî, of Persia)¹ may be placed at the side of the wonderful works of the European painters who have attained world-wide fame. The minuteness in detail, the general finish, the boldness of execution, etc., now observed in pictures are incomparable; even inanimate objects look as if they had life. More than a hundred painters have become famous masters of the art, whilst the number of those who approach perfection, or those who are middling, is very large. This is especially true of the Hindus: their pictures surpass our conception of things. Few indeed in the whole world are found equal to them.
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¹ Two very interesting outline drawings of Bihzad are preserved in the Oriental Manuscripts department of the British Museum. They show very marked Mongolian influence.
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"The number of masterpieces of painting increased with the encouragement given to the art. Persian books, both prose and poetry, were ornamented with pictures, and a very large number of paintings were thus collected. The story of Hamzah was represented in twelve volumes, and clever painters made the most astonishing illustrations for no less than one thousand and four hundred passages of the story. The 'Chingiz-namah,' the 'Zafar-namah,' this book, the 'Razm-namah,' the 'Ramayan,' the 'Nal Daman,' the ‘Kalilah Damnah,’ the ‘Ayâr Danîsh,’ etc., were all illustrated.
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“His Majesty himself sat for his likeness,¹ and also ordered to have the likenesses taken of all the grandees of the realm. An immense album was thus formed; those that have passed away have received a new life, and those who are still alive have immortality promised them.”
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¹ A portrait of Akbar, bearing Jahangir’s seal, was formerly in the Calcutta Art Gallery, but was transferred to the Victoria Memorial collection at Lord Curzon’s request.
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Abul Fazl gives a list of the celebrated painters of Akbar’s Court. He singles out four for especial mention:
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“Mir Sayyid Ali, of Tabriz.” [Translator’s note: “Better known as a poet, under the name of Juddi. He illuminated the story of ‘Amir Hamzah,’ mentioned above.”]
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“Khâjah Abduççamad, styled Shîrîn-qalam, or ‘Sweet Pen.’ He comes from Shiraz.
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“Daswanth. He is the son of a palkee-bearer. He devoted his whole life to the art, and used, from love to his profession, to draw and paint figures even on walls. One day the eye of His Majesty fell on him; his talent was discovered, and he himself handed over to the Khâjah. In a short time he surpassed all painters, and became the first master of the age. Unfortunately, the light of his talents was dimmed by the shadow of madness. He committed suicide. He has left many masterpieces.
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“Basâwan. In backgrounding, drawing of features, distribution of colours, portrait painting, and several other branches, he is most excellent.
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So much so that many critics prefer him to Daswanth."
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The following thirteen painters are also mentioned by Abul Fazl as being famous:
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"Kesu, Zál, Mukund, Mushkin, Farrukh the Qalmaq (Kalmuck), Mâdhû, Jagan, Mohesh, K'hêmkaran, Târâ, Sânwlah, Haribans, Râm."
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A good many of the paintings by these artists are still in existence, but, except as regards minuteness of detail and careful finish, they do not, as a rule, deserve the high praise bestowed upon them by Akbar's chronicler. However well-intentioned, the criticism and supervision in technical details of their imperial patron, as well as the system of weekly rewards, must have been very embarrassing to the painters, and hardly calculated to bring out the highest artistic talent. The chief merit of Akbar's system of control was his insistence on the study of Nature and the drawing of portraits, etc., direct from life.
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The Victoria and Albert Museum, South Kensington, has recently acquired a part of the "Akbarnama," with about one hundred and ten illustrations, mostly by the painters whom Abul Fazl places in the second class, but including several with the signature of Basawan, who is reckoned among the most famous of Akbar's artists.
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Though there is great delicacy in the execution, in most of them—not excluding those with Basawan's signature—the colouring is heavy, sometimes even crude; the action of the figures is generally stiff and unnatural, and the composition without any distinction of style. One remarkable exception, which stands out from the rest in beauty of composition and colouring, is a charming picture signed by "Farruckh Beg," who is evidently Farrukh the Kalmuck mentioned by Abul Fazl. This, however, belongs entirely to the Chinese school.
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One interesting fact brought out by these paintings is that they were frequently drawn by one artist and painted by another. Possibly Akbar, who loved to regulate the smallest details of his Court, introduced this rather inartistic division of labour, which may account for the curious, confused style of some of the paintings. There had been for many centuries in China and Japan a real division in art-practice between outline-work and painting; but to employ an outline artist and a painter to work together on the same picture seems to have been an innovation. The practice is also referred to by Jahangir in his memoirs, but it was not apparently long continued by the Mogul artists.
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The attention which Akbar is said to have devoted to the preparation of pigments is far from showing good results in these paintings, which in many cases exhibit a crudeness and disharmony of colour very unusual in pure oriental art. The modern legend that the Mogul painters used pounded precious stones for their colours perhaps originated from a literal interpretation of an ordinary figure of speech: the only colour-materials used by them which approach to a "precious" stone are the blue of lapis lazuli, and a red made from coral.
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The British Museum has a "Babar-nama" from Akbar's collection illustrated by many of the same artists, and the Maharajah of Jaipur possesses an illustrated "Razm-nama" which is said to have cost Akbar more than £40,000. There are also a few fine works by Akbar's painters in private collections in Europe, but they rarely reach the high-water mark of Mogul pictorial art. Akbar's reign was a period of transition in Indian art, and the good effects of the greatest of the Mogul's interest in painting was not fully apparent until after he had passed away.
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Jahangir, Akbar's intemperate son (1605-1628), inherited few of his father's greater qualities, but was equally devoted to the fine arts. His memoirs contain many evidences of the keen personal and even affectionate interest which he took in his court painters and their work. He treated them as intimate friends and frequently bestowed upon them the highest distinctions. Jahangir himself tells us that he raised Sherif Khan, the son of Abdul Hamad—one of Akbar's portrait painters—who had grown up with him from infancy and upon whom, while heir-apparent, he had conferred the title of Khan, to the position of premier grandee of the empire.
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In the thirteenth year of his reign the memoirs record:
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“This day Abu’-l-Hasan, a painter, who bore the title of Nâdiru-zamân, drew a picture of my Court and presented it to me. He had attached it as a frontispiece to the ‘Jahangir-nama.’ As it was well worthy of praise, I loaded him with great favours. If the celebrated Abûl-Haî and Bihzâd were now alive they would do him full justice for his exquisite taste in painting.
“His father, Âka-Razâ, was always with me while I was a prince, and his son was born in my household. However, the son is far superior to the father. I gave him a good education, till he became one of the most distinguished men of the age. The portraits furnished by him are beautiful.
“Mansur is also a master of the art of drawing, and he has the title of Nâdiru-l-Aslî. In the time of my father and my own there have been none to compare with these two artists.”
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Neither Abúl-Hasan nor Mansur is mentioned in Abul Fazl’s list, so probably they came into prominence in the later period of Akbar’s reign. The Calcutta Art Gallery has two beautiful specimens of Mausur’s work, which will be noticed hereafter.
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Jahangir makes an interesting allusion to his own ability as a connoisseur, and to the practice which obtained of dividing the work of painting a picture between several different artists:
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“I am very fond of pictures,” he says, “and have such a discrimination in judging them that
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STUDY OF AN OLD MAN
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PLATE LVI
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STUDY OF AN OLD MAN
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I can tell the name of the artist, whether living or dead. If there were several portraits [in the same picture] painted by several artists I could point out the painter of each. Even if one portrait were finished by several painters I could mention the names of those who had drawn the different portions of that single picture. In fact, I could declare without fail by whom the brow and by whom the eyelashes were drawn, or if any one had touched up the portrait after it was drawn by the first painter."
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Though we may feel incredulous of the remarkable critical powers which Jahangir asserted for himself, it seems likely that he possessed a rare discrimination, for the pictures bearing his seal are among the finest of the whole Mogul period.
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The style of the early Mogul paintings shows that a close observation of nature was not the practice of that school. Jahangir gives corroborative evidence of this in another passage, where he mentions that he had received a number of rare birds and animals from Goa, and ordered their actual likenesses to be drawn:
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"The Emperor Babar has in his memoirs given an able description and pictured representation of several animals; but it is most probable that he never ordered the painters to draw them from the life."
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It was, no doubt, the practice of direct study from nature, re-introduced by Akbar, which brought about the very remarkable development in the power of artistic expression which is evident in the best drawings and paintings of Jahangir's time. But "drawing from the life" is never taken in the same sense as it is in modern European academies. It did not mean that the student sat down by the side of his model and commenced to reproduce as closely as possible its reflection on the retina of his own eyes; but that, after a most careful observation of the model, he went away and recorded his mental impression of it, returning occasionally, if necessary, to refresh his memory. In this way the artist's powers of memory were developed to an extraordinary degree.
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One of the most amusing passages in the "Memoirs of Sir Thomas Roe," who was sent by James I., in the interests of the East India Company, to the Court of the Great Mogul, is concerned with Jahangir's pride in the skill of his painters. The directors of the Company, who were evidently aware what were the most acceptable presents at the Mogul Court, had sent some pictures with the ambassador: they had previously sent out portraits of James and his Queen, Anne of Denmark, as well as one of Sir Thomas Smyth, Governor of the Company, which was much prized by Jahangir, as his painters, so it was said, confessed their inability to imitate it.¹
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¹ "The Embassy of Sir Thomas Roe," edited by William Foster, B.A. vol. i., p. 143, note 3.
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Finding that Jahangir was more pleased with pictures than with anything else, Roe presented him with one of his own:
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“A Pickture of a friend of myne that I esteemed very much, and was for Curiositye rare, which I would give his Maiestie as a present, seeing hee so much affected that art; assuring myselfe he never saw any equall to it, neyther was anything more esteemed of mee.”
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This was a painting by Isaac Oliver, the English miniaturist.
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Jahangir was extremely pleased with the picture, but offered to bet with the ambassador that his court painters would make a copy which Roe could not distinguish from the original. After some diplomatic fencing, Roe, who had formed a very poor opinion of Indian artists from the pictures he had seen, agreed to “lay a good horse” with the Minister, Asaph Khan; but the latter, he added in his diary, “recanted in Priuat.”
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Some weeks afterwards the ambassador was summoned to the Durbar and was first asked by Jahangir, who had satisfied himself of the quality of his artist’s performances, what he would give the painter if his copy fulfilled the terms of the wager. “A painter’s reward—50 rupees,” said Sir Thomas, rather contemptuously. Jahangir replied that this was insufficient, for his painter was “a Cauallero”—a gentleman.
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The copies, when produced, were five in number, pasted together with the original “on one table,” and so like that Roe was—
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"by candlelight troubled to discerne which was which; I confess beyond all expectation: yet I showed myne owne and the differences which were in arte apparent, but not to be judged by a Common eye. But for that at first sight I knew it not, hee [Jahangir] was very merry and joyfull, and craked like a Northern man."
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Jahangir again exultingly insisted upon knowing what reward Roe would give to his painter, and, refusing any offer of money, finally settled that, in exchange for one of the copies which Jahangir gave, the artist should choose one of the English "toyes" Roe had brought with him.
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Though the test imposed by Jahangir was one of ordinary technical skill, and not very convincing, there is no doubt that there were many distinguished artists among his court painters. The subtle refinement of the Indian miniaturist's art was evidently lost upon Roe, and the more obvious realism of European painting appealed to him, just as it does to "a Common eye" in India to-day.
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A very interesting incident in the history of Mogul art is revealed in the recent discovery that Indian miniature paintings, brought to Europe about this time, supplied material for a great Dutch master who was a contemporary of Jahangir and Shah Jahan—Rembrandt. Among Rembrandt's pen-and-ink studies collected in the British Museum, the Louvre, and elsewhere, a number have been identified as copies or adapta-
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PLATE LVII
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PRINCE MUHAMMAD MURAD ON THE ELEPHANT IQBAL
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*From a drawing by Gholam*
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PLATE LVII
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PRINCE MUHAMMAD MURAD ON THE ELEPHANT IQBAL
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From a drawing by Gholam tions of Indian miniatures, and it has been shown that, from them chiefly, Rembrandt derived the oriental atmosphere for his Biblical subjects.
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Professor Sarre, in his monograph on the subject,¹ gives side by side reproductions of the original Mogul miniature paintings or drawings, and Rembrandt's pen-and-ink sketches. The British Museum possesses a drawing by Rembrandt copied from a Mogul miniature of "Akbar, (?)² on his throne," now in the Ethnographic Museum, Berlin. The latter museum has also an original Mogul painting of an "Indian Prince on Horseback," Rembrandt's copy of which is in the British Museum. The Louvre has another study by him of "Timur on his Throne," copied, with a few variations, from an Indian miniature painting now in Berlin.
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¹ "Jahrbuch den Kön. Preuszischen Kunst Sammlungen," xxv. Berlin, 1904.
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² Mr. G. P. Rouffaer has pointed out that this is Jahangir, not Akbar.
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It appears that in 1631 Rembrandt resided at Amsterdam, then the headquarters of the Dutch East India Company, and a great centre of European trade with the Orient. Rembrandt's paintings reveal him as a mystic at heart, in spite of his environment, and he took a great interest in everything connected with the East. In 1642 he painted the portrait of Abraham Wilmerdonks, director of the East India Company, who had a considerable oriental collection. Rembrandt himself collected oriental costumes, wood-carving, and paintings. In the inventory of his effects made after his bankruptcy in 1656 there is an entry of “a book of curious miniature drawings,” which may have been the Mogul miniatures from which he made the pen-and-ink studies referred to.
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Professor Sarre is doubtless right in pointing out that, though Rembrandt made use of these miniatures for his oriental accessories, it cannot be said that his art was deeply influenced by them: European critics do not always show such discernment when they discover Indian artists borrowing Western details for their own use. At the same time it is probable that Rembrandt appreciated them highly, as every artist will. Rembrandt’s art was entirely individual, and not founded on any school; but there is a close affinity between the technique of the Mogul portrait painters and the traditions of the early Dutch and Flemish schools, which might have appealed to him. Very widely apart as the Mogul painting is from Rembrandt’s art in methods and point of view, there is an affinity between them in choice of subject: in both of them we find solemn, mysterious effects of concentrated light—especially the contrasts of nocturnal darkness with torchlight and firelight—and in both of them these effects are treated with wonderful largeness and poetic feeling. Plates LXIV., LXV., are fine examples of this little-known development in Mogul painting.
Linked texts (4)
- Pañcatantra — Viṣṇuśarman, Sanskrit
- Vālmīkirāmāyaṇa — Vālmīki, Sanskrit
- Taj Mahal
- Fatehpur Sikri