Indian Sculpture and Painting, Illustrated by Typical Masterpieces, with an Explanation of their Motives and Ideals c12: Chapter III. Indian Miniature Painting

Indian Sculpture and Painting, Illustrated by Typical Masterpieces, with an Explanation of their Motives and Ideals c12

Language: English

Chapter III. Indian Miniature Painting

c12.2

THE miniatures of the Mogul school may be divided into four classes: first, finished outline drawings and sketches, mostly portraits; second, studies of birds and animals, both in outline and in colour, and often made direct from nature; third, painted portraits; and fourth, historical pictures, *genre*, etc.

c12.3

Before the invention of printing the miniaturist's art was always closely connected with that of calligraphy, and the extraordinary technical skill of the Mogul outline drawings, as well as the style of the draftsmanship, was no doubt directly due to the manual dexterity first acquired in the art of fine writing. In Mogul, as in most Saracenic decoration, long texts from the Koran in various ornamental characters took the place of the painted or sculptured figures and animals found in Hindu work.

c12.4

Abul Fazl, in the "Ain-i Akbari," thus discourses on calligraphy, which even in the present day is an accomplishment highly considered by cultured Muhammadans of the old school:

c12.5

"I shall first say something of the art of writing, as it is the most important of the two arts. His Majesty pays much attention to both, and is an excellent judge of form and thought. And, indeed, in the eyes of the friends of true beauty, a letter is the source from which the light confined within it beams forth; and, in the opinion of the far-sighted, it is the world-reflecting cup in the abstract.¹ The letter, a magical power, is spiritual geometry, emanating from the pen of invention; a heavenly writ from the hand of fate, it contains the secret of the word, and is the tongue of the hand. . . . A letter is the portrait-painter of wisdom; a rough sketch from the realm of ideas; a dark night ushering in the day; a black cloud pregnant with knowledge; the wand for the treasures of insight; speaking, yet dumb; stationary, yet travelling; stretched on the sheet, and yet soaring upwards" (vol. i., p. 97, Blochman's translation).

c12.6

¹ The fabulous cup of King Jamshid, which revealed the secrets of the seven heavens.

c12.7

Abul Fazl mentions that in Iran and Turan, India and Turkey, there were eight calligraphical systems current. In China the invention of drawing as one of the six branches of calligraphy is referred by tradition to the legendary monarch, Fa-hi, who is supposed to have reigned from 2852 to 2737 b.c.

c12.8

The style of the handwriting of a language influenced greatly the style of the artist's draftsmanship. For instance, the great variety of the

c12.9

² Anderson, "Pictorial Arts of Japan," vol. ii., p. 253.

c12.11

PLATE LVIII

c12.13

strokes in Chinese and Japanese ideographs has given an immense fluency and variety to the outline-drawings of the artists of those countries, so much so that in Japan ten different styles of line-drawing are recognised, each style representing a special character or mode of artistic expression. In writing Persian, the court language of the Moguls, or the more regular characters of the Indian languages, the hand would acquire less freedom but a more concentrated and delicate touch, and consequently, though the Mogul drawings have not the fluency of the Chinese and Japanese, we find in them the certainty and precision of a medallist, and a truly marvellous delicacy and refinement.

c12.14

This outline-drawing was in India, as it is in China and Japan to-day, a speciality. As we have already noticed, in the time of Akbar and Jahangir a picture was frequently outlined by one artist and painted by another. The lines were drawn, not with a pen, but with a fine brush made from the hairs of a squirrel’s tail. A preliminary sketch was generally made in Indian red, used without gum, so that when dry the colour could be brushed away, leaving a very faint indication of the drawing. The finished line was then drawn with lamp-black, specially prepared by burning a camphorated cotton wick in a mustard-oil lamp. Sometimes the drawing was delicately shaded, and some of the details heightened with gold or tinted. The artists prided themselves on the fineness of their brushes, and the test of supremest skill was to finish the detail with an *ek bâl kalam*, “a one-haired brush,” which seems to have been used for microscopic stippling as well as for drawing the finest lines.

c12.15

The reproductions in Plates LV., LVI., LVII., will give some idea of the wonderful distinction, delicacy, and charm, and withal masterful strength of this Indian outline-drawing, though there is in it an elusive quality which no process of reproduction can preserve. Apparently without effort and with the most simple means, his unfaltering line flowing in a never-broken rhythm, the Mogul artist gives us a perfect totality, full of form, character, and life. There is no weakness, no hesitation or attempt to shirk difficulties, so that one can share the artist’s full delight in the perfection of his technique. With all the sincerity, truthfulness, and perfect finish of the old Dutch and Flemish masters, these drawings have a delicate flavour of their own, a subtlety and sensitiveness which suggest the music of the Indian *vîna* or the sonnets of Hafiz and Omar Khayyam. And though they are only shaded outlines, with an occasional discreet touch of gold or colour, they are perfectly complete and satisfying as works of art, for the strength of the drawing gives them all the relief of a finished cameo.

c12.16

The portrait of Ytikad Khan, Plate LV., brings us into intimate acquaintance with a polished Mogul courtier of the sixteenth or seven-

c12.17

PLATE LIX

c12.18

A PORTRAIT OF SA'DI

c12.19

Enlarged to four times the original size Enlarged to four times the original size This page contains no text, headings, figures, or page furniture to transcribe.

c12.21

teenth century, a perfect type of a cultured, well-bred Indian nobleman of the old school. The character of the head and pose of the figure are rendered with the same consummate skill and faithfulness as the features, beard, and other details, including the folds of the sleeves and tight-fitting trousers.

c12.22

Plate LVI., an unfinished study of an old man in facsimile, will show more of the technical beauty in this line-brush work, though the reproduction has failed to do full justice to the crispness of touch in the original. The Mogul artist, with his brush, could draw lines with the delicacy and fineness of the etcher's needle-point. This drawing approaches closer to the freedom of Chinese and Japanese masters than most of the Mogul line-work.

c12.23

Another masterly drawing, finished with great minuteness and heightened with gold, is a group of elephants, Plate LVII., which bears this inscription in Persian: "Prince Muhammad Murad, son of Shah Jahan, on the elephant Iqbal, drawn by Gholam in 1030 A.H. (A.D. 1621)." The interest is concentrated on the great elephant, which has apparently become unruly, as he is flourishing the mahout's goad in his trunk and trumpeting loudly. The Prince has climbed on to his back to take the mahout's place, while the latter, or one of the attendants, is chaining the elephant's legs. The excited movement of the great beast is splendidly given and the vigour of the composition is not less striking than the finish of the technique, both in the drawing of the three elephants and in the careful study of the banyan-tree behind.

c12.24

An important branch of the court artists' training was to learn to draw from memory traditional portraits, such as those of the Emperor's ancestors, or of other great historical personages for whose likeness there was a regular demand. A collection of these historical portrait types, derived sometimes from old contemporary portraits, and sometimes from the artist's own imagination, was part of the stock-in-trade of an Indian miniature painter.

c12.25

The exquisite coloured drawing of Jahangir's time, inscribed, "A portrait of Saʻdi of Shiraz (May God sanctify his tomb!)," belongs to this class. Saʻdi visited India in the first half of the thirteenth century, and it is possible that his portrait may have been drawn by Indian artists of that time; or a contemporary portrait by Persian artists may have existed in Jahangir's collection. This drawing, however, is not a mere copy, but a most careful study from life, founded on a recognised traditional type known to the Mogul artists. Probably one of Jahangir's court poets served as a model.

c12.26

It gives a very convincing presentment of the famous Persian poet: a pose full of dignity, and a face which shows great force of character. We can realise his adventurous life, which he tells in his "Gulistân": how he travelled through Northern

c12.27

XI ƎTAЛЯ

c12.28

HƆИIƧ ЯAMA ꟻO ИOƧ ,IAM LAЯUƧ ꟻO TIAЯTЯOꟼ A

c12.29

*sdɒИ γᙠ*

c12.30

PLATE LX

c12.31

A PORTRAIT OF SURAJ MAL, SON OF AMAR SINGH

c12.32

By Nanha India and Africa, Abyssinia, Central Asia, Syria and Arabia

c12.34

“in true dervish fashion, in all sorts of ways, and mixing with all sorts of people. Stumbling after the Pilgrim’s Caravan through the burning deserts of Arabia, now bandying jests with a fine technical flavour of grammatical terminology with schoolboys of Káshghar, now a prisoner in the hands of the Franks, condemned to hard labour in the company of Jews in the Syrian town of Tripoli, now engaged in investigating the mechanism of a wonder-working Hindoo idol in the temple of Somnáth, and saving his life by killing the custodian who discovered him engaged in this pursuit.”¹

c12.35

¹ Browne’s “Literary History of Persia,” p. 529.

c12.36

Whether it was an authentic likeness of Sa‘di may be open to doubt, but it is certainly a fine conception of the hardy old poet, and a splendid study of life and character, carried out with such consummate mastery of technique and expression as to make it great in art, in spite of the diminutive scale of execution.

c12.37

The strength and thoroughness of the draftsmanship can only be fully appreciated by examining the original with a magnifying glass, but the enlargement of half the figure to twice the original size which is given in Plate LIX. will give some idea of them. It speaks much for the artist’s technique that it can be so much enlarged without losing any of its fine quality, and we can understand from this that the Mogul artists’ fresco paintings on a large scale, of which only a few fragments now remain, must have been quite as remarkable as their miniature work.¹

c12.38

¹ The Mogul miniaturists did occasionally paint portraits on a scale even larger than the enlargement here given. The Art Gallery formerly possessed a very fine example, a portrait of Dara Shikoh, about half life-size. This was transferred to the Victoria Memorial collection at Lord Curzon's request, where it is now, I am glad to say, valued so highly that the Trustees considered it unsafe to allow me to reproduce it.

c12.39

Plate LX. is a beautiful example of Mogul painted portraiture in the best period. It bears Jahangir's seal, and a note in Persian, apparently written by himself, "a portrait of Surajmal, the son of Amar Singh, painted by Nanha." This is a type of those sturdy Rajput warriors, some of whom, through Akbar's tactful diplomacy, became the Great Mogul's most faithful adherents, after a gallant but vain struggle for independence.

c12.40

The picture is a delightful little gem. Worthy of comparison with Holbein for faithful, refined workmanship and strong characterisation, it arrests attention more by its exquisite feeling for colour, which invests the rather prosaic form and features of the model with a wonderful distinction. The painter, like Holbein, does not make use of shadows, but with most delicate modelling and strength of drawing he has succeeded in giving the roundness and explaining the meaning of every form.

c12.41

The picture is mounted on a superbly designed decorative frame-work. First there are two narrow borders, in one of which a Persian sonnet is

c12.42

STUDY OF A WHITE CRANE

c12.43

By Ustad Mansur

c12.44

PLATE LXI

c12.45

STUDY OF A WHITE CRANE

c12.46

By Ustad Mansur This image appears to be a completely blank page with no printed text, headings, figures, footnotes, or page furniture to transcribe.

c12.48

arranged in cartouches, with floral decoration; outside them there is a wide edge of exquisite Persian floral diapers exactly in the style of the *pietra dura* decorations of the Taj Mahal at Agra, which are always wrongly attributed by Anglo-Indian tradition to the French adventurer at Shah Jahan's Court, Austin de Bordeaux.

c12.49

The supreme skill and taste with which the Mogul miniatures are mounted add greatly to the charm of the pictures. The borders were generally the work of another artist, but they are frequently not inferior as works of art to the pictures themselves.

c12.50

The name of the artist Nanha is not, so far as I am aware, mentioned in the records of Jahangir's reign, but the Calcutta Art Gallery possesses two, possibly three, finished studies in colour by Mansur, the painter on whom Jahangir conferred the title of Nadiru-l-Aslî, and whom he described as being, together with Abul Hasan, the best artist of his time.

c12.51

One of these is a most careful and delicate study, evidently from nature, of a Bengal florican. On it Jahangir himself has written the following note in Persian:

c12.52

"This is a picture of a bird called jurz-i-bur, painted by Ustad Mansur, the most remarkable painter of his time: written by Jahangir Akbar Shah in the year 19 [A.D. 1624]."

c12.53

The minuteness of the detail makes it difficult to do justice to this interesting study in a reproduction.

c12.54

The other one is the magnificent "Picture of a White Crane" reproduced in Plate LXI., which amply justifies Jahangir's pride in the skill of his court painters, for as an ornithological study it rivals the work of the best Japanese masters. The delicate feathers of the white plumage and the microscopic details of the bird's anatomy are drawn with infinite patience and scientific exactitude—qualities which might have been infinitely tedious had they not been combined with consummate taste and judgment. For every touch is put in with a masterly appreciation of its just value, so that amidst the extraordinary wealth of detail artistic unity is always preserved.

c12.55

The painting of a turkey-cock, Plate LXII., is possibly another work by Mansur. It also bears Jahangir's seal, and its history is given by Jahangir himself in the diary of the seventh year of his reign, as recorded in the "Wakiat-i-Jahangiri." Mukarrab Khan, who had been sent on a mission to Goa, brought back several rarities he had purchased for the Emperor.

c12.56

"Among them," says Jahangir, "were a few animals which excited my curiosity and which I had never seen before. No one even knew their names. 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. But as the animals now before me were of such exquisite

c12.57

PLATE LXII

c12.58

A TURKEY-COCK

c12.59

By one of Jahāngīr's Court painters

c12.61

A TURKEY-COCK

c12.62

By one of Jahangir's Court painters rarity, I wrote a description of them and ordered that their pictures should be drawn in the ‘Jahangiri-nama’ with the view that their actual likenesses might afford a greater surprise to the reader than the mere description of them.”

c12.64

“One of the birds resembled a peahen, but was a little larger in size, though less than a peacock. When he was desirous of pairing he used to spread his tail and feathers and danced about like a peacock. His beak and feet resembled those of a barn-door fowl. His head, neck, and throat changed their colour every minute, but when anxious to pair he became a perfect red and seemed to be a beautiful piece of coral. After some time he was as white as cotton, and sometimes he got as blue as a turquoise, and, in short, turned all colours, like a chameleon. The piece of flesh which is attached to his head looks like the comb of a cock. But the curious part of it was that that piece of flesh, when he was about to pair, hung down a span long, like the trunk of an elephant, and when again restored to its position it was erected over the head to the height of two fingers. The part round his eyes remained constantly of a blue colour, and was never subject to change, which was not the case with his wings, which were always changing their colour, contrary to those of a peacock.”¹

c12.65

¹ Elliott’s “History of India,” vol. vi., pp. 331, 332.

c12.66

This graphic description, as the translator observes in his note, was evidently meant for a turkey-cock, “which, strange to say, is in Turkish ascribed to India, and called *Hind Taughi*.”

c12.67

There is not much doubt that this splendid little study, which sums up so admirably the arrogant swagger of the turkey-cock and all the characteristics of his plumage, is the original painting ordered by Jahangir.

c12.68

The portrait group of Muhammadan Mullahs seated in a terrace with a landscape background (*Frontispiece*) is by a painter of Shah Jahan's reign (1628–58). The old man in white, with his knees tied up according to Indian ideas of comfort, and attended by a servant, is receiving two visitors, one of whom, dressed in pink, with a brown cloak, is addressing him with great earnestness, while his companion, in grey, with a pale green shawl, listens attentively. Each head is a study, drawn with the keenest appreciation of character, and the sentiment of the whole scene—the courtly, oriental etiquette, and the earnest conversation—is expressed with masterly skill.

c12.69

Behind the figures, whose costumes make a delightful combination of delicate colour-harmonies, there is a large tree, and a few graceful flowering shrubs, with water beyond, and high ground, on which is built a walled town or fortress. A glowing sunset in the sky is effectively suggested with a blaze of gold and a few skilful touches of orange, pink, and pale blue.

c12.70

The perspective is unscientific, and there is hardly any attempt to reproduce atmospheric tones; the artist was absorbed in the decorative quality of his forms and colour-harmonies, and in the human interest of the scene. He cared only for imitation so far as it was necessary for his scheme. To “the common eye,” accustomed to the striking illusion of modern European painting and photography, this may seem to betray a lack of artistic power. It would be waste of effort to attempt to convince those who require their artistic convictions to be fortified with scientific arguments that in this picture perspective and atmospheric effect are not wanted, just because the artist could do without them. When a perfect system of colour-photography, with the requisite amount of manipulation to reproduce “artistic” effects, provides the public with the cheap illusion it now expects from picture-painters, it may begin to realise that creation, not imitation, is the true aim of art.

c12.71

The exquisitely finished picture of which Plate LXIII. is a reproduction probably represents the highest achievements of the Mogul artists in painting the nude figure, though painting nudity for its own sake, or as a test of skill, was never the aim of an Indian artist. The perfect technique and the mastery of human anatomy seem to indicate that it belongs to the best period of Mogul art, *i.e.* the first sixty years of the seventeenth century, but the exact historical incident it represents is an open question.

c12.72

The scene is in the courtyard of a palace. Over the entrance gateway is a partly obliterated inscription, of which the words “Shah Jahangir” only are decipherable. In the lower right-hand corner there is a signature which reads like "Manuchihar Bandâ."

c12.73

A party of bricklayers is busily engaged in building a wall, evidently with the object of shutting off some of the apartments of the palace from access to the main entrance; a man with a long black beard is preparing the mortar for the bricks, assisted by a *bhishti*, who is bringing water for it.

c12.74

The prostrate figure of the old man in the foreground seems to represent the occupier of the palace, begging mercy from his jailors or executioners—the two dark-complexioned men standing by him. From their deprecating air, and the expression of sorrow on their faces, the latter appear to be performing a very painful duty.

c12.75

A bowl is placed on the ground close to the feet of one of them. Does it contain the fatal draught with which the Mogul emperors so often disposed of those who incurred their displeasure? and, if so, who is the unfortunate victim here represented? Or does this picture illustrate the tradition that Aurangzîb bricked up a portion of the Agra palace to prevent the escape of his father, Shah Jahan?

c12.76

Whatever may be the subject, the marvellously refined technique and exquisite feeling for colour give it a rare distinction. The nearly nude figures of the workmen are unusually fine in drawing and modelling; the natural freedom of their movements shows what immense strides the artists of [Figure: PLATE LXIII SCENE IN A PALACE COURTYARD]

c12.77

PLATE LXIII

c12.78

SCENE IN A PALACE COURTYARD

c12.81

the Mogul Court had made in the study of life since the days of Akbar.

c12.82

As a rule, there is very little evidence of European influence in Mogul painting. The Mogul artists sometimes made copies of European pictures when they were required to do so, but their own work does not show that they ever took any real interest in them. The endeavour to assimilate European ideas is nearly always disastrous to the oriental artist, on account of the opposition between his views of life and of Nature and those which govern Western art.

c12.83

A curious instance of this is to be found in the work of a Persian artist of the early seventeenth century, who was sent to Europe by Shah Abbas to study painting in Rome. His pictures, some of which are now preserved in the British Museum, reveal a hopeless conflict between his subconscious views of art and his painful effort to show things as he was wanted to show them ; the result being, on the one hand, the total loss of what was valuable in his own art, and, on the other, a complete failure to reproduce anything of artistic value in his translation of European art.

c12.84

The conspicuous failure of the great masters of the Renaissance to transform an oriental artist into a European one is only an illustration of that incompatibility between Eastern and Western ideas which has existed ever since the philosophical schools of Takshasila, Benares, Nalanda, and Sridhanya Kataka formulated the canons of Indian art; but where they failed we still fatuously hope to succeed, or, what is more foolish, believe we are doing so.

c12.85

It is an open question whether the introduction into Mogul painting of landscapes with effects of chiaroscuro came from the study of European pictures imported into India, or whether it was due to Chinese influence. Anderson says that the Chinese, as landscape painters, anticipated their European brethren by over a score of generations, and created transcripts of scenery that for breadth, atmosphere, and picturesque beauty can scarcely be surpassed. The connection of Chinese art with Indian, even in the Mogul times, was infinitely closer than the European, though we are accustomed to attribute any development of a naturalistic tendency which we discover in Mogul art to European influence.

c12.86

Indian art cannot, however, show any separate school of landscape painting such as is found in China and Japan; but landscape backgrounds to figure-subjects are frequently used with a complete understanding of the true function of the fine art, as Emerson has nobly expressed it:

c12.87

"In landscapes the painter should give the suggestion of a fairer creation than we know. The details, the prose of Nature, he should omit, and give us only the spirit and the splendour. He should know that the landscape has beauty to the eye because it expresses a thought which is to him good, and this because the same power

c12.88

PLATE LXIV A PRINCE AND PRINCESS RIDING BY TORCHLIGHT

c12.89

A PRINCE AND PRINCESS RIDING BY TORCHLIGHT

c12.91

which sees through his eyes is seen in that spectacle; and he will come to value the expression of Nature, and not Nature itself, and so exalt in his copy the features which please him. He will give the gloom of gloom and the sunshine of sunshine."

c12.92

Night and effects of artificial light seem to have an especial attraction for the Indian painter, and these are often handled with magnificent breadth and fine feeling. Two examples from the Calcutta Art Gallery, probably late eighteenth or early nineteenth century work, are given in Plates LXIV., LXV. In the former a young Rajput Prince and Princess are riding by night through a mountain pass, an attendant walking on foot between them; a masalchi in front carefully shows the way with a flaming torch. The darkness closes round the travellers and pursues the torch's glare. The lady is pointing eagerly forward, as if to show her gladness that the journey's end is now in sight. The legs and half of the bodies of the high-mettled steeds are painted red—an ancient custom with Rajput chivalry to symbolise the blood of their enemies through which they waded to victory. The crescent moon peeps behind the hill on the right, and there is a glimpse of a river in the plain below.

c12.93

Wonderfully harmonious are the contrasts of tone and colour—broadly and simply expressed—the blaze of the torch lighting up the path in front, throwing the horses and their riders into a warm relief of vivid colour between the darkness and the light; half-revealing, half-obscuring the glowing masses of the rocks behind, fringed by the dark edges of the forest. Through the gap between the hills the sky is seen faintly lighted by the moon, and with true poetic insight, the artist makes us feel the "gloom of gloom" and the stillness of the night.

c12.94

¹ Essay on Art.

c12.95

The scene may be in the rugged hills of Rajputana, in the fastnesses of which the gallant Rajput chiefs often took refuge when their country was overrun by the Mogul armies. No doubt the artist had often watched such an effect as this and imbibed its solemn, mysterious beauty. The largeness and generalisation of the treatment are qualities which modern European painters of the impressionist school have often aimed at, but seldom realised with so much spontaneity and little self-consciousness as this Indian picture exhibits, for here there is no conscious effort to produce an effect called artistic, but a simple interpretation of Nature as it revealed itself to the artist.

c12.96

The conventional style of the drawing of the figures and horses shows less knowledge of anatomy than the artists of Jahangir's time possessed. But the essential movements which tell the story are expressed with perfect truth and understanding. There is charming sentiment in the gracious head of the Princess, and the watch-

c12.97

DEER HUNTING BY NIGHT

c12.98

PLATE LXV

c12.99

DEER HUNTING BY NIGHT

c12.102

ful attention of the torch-bearer is given with great sincerity.

c12.103

The orthodox critic in Europe treats impressionism as a new and somewhat peculiar development in modern art, towards which he must maintain a strictly guarded, if not hostile, attitude. It is sometimes a speciality, but more often a fad. To the academic professor it is a dangerous tendency, almost a vice, which should be sternly repressed in all students. The true oriental artist regards it as the breath of life, the end of all art; he thinks that, of all artistic faculties, the one which must be trained and developed to the highest degree is the faculty of realising thought-impressions.

c12.104

But his impressionism is not merely a blurred vision of natural appearances, as it often is in modern European art. To see with the mind, not merely with the eye; to bring out an essential quality, not the common appearance of things; to give the movement and character in a figure, not only the bone and muscle; to reveal some precious quality or effect in a landscape, not merely physiographical or botanical facts; and, above all, to identify himself with the inner consciousness of the Nature he portrays, and to make manifest the one harmonious law which governs Nature in all her moods,—these are the thoughts which he always keeps uppermost in his mind as soon as he knows how to use his tools with tolerable facility. It is considered of the most vital importance to train the faculty of mind-seeing from the earliest youth, when impressions are strong and vivid, instead of leaving this development to the end of the academic career, as we usually do in Europe. The oriental artist does not neglect detail—witness the wonderful studies of Japanese artists, and those by Indian artists given in Plates LXI., LXII. But the first principle of oriental art-practice is to develop a habit of concentrated thought at the same time as imitative skill is being acquired by practice. In modern European art academies, the creative power usually lies fallow in the most important years of a student’s mental development, while the imitative skill is being acquired by a dreary routine of more or less mechanical exercises. In this respect art-teaching only repeats the errors of what we mis-call “classical” education in public schools; but the habit thereby engendered of regarding art as a technical process, rather than a creative faculty, explains to a great extent the archæological critic’s standpoint in regard to Indian art.

c12.105

“Deer-hunting by Night” (Plate LXV.) is another characteristic example of Indian impressionism. It is a landscape with two figures only, a man and a woman, both scantily dressed with a girdle of leaves. The man’s head is crowned with a wreath of leaves, and he is armed with bow and arrows; the woman stands behind a bush holding a lighted lantern in one hand and a small bell in the other

c12.107

PLATE LXVI

c12.108

Size of original to attract the attention of a herd of deer close by. The man has just discharged his arrow and shot the buck, while the terrified does scatter in all directions.

c12.110

The interest of the picture is not, however, in the figures, which, though good in movement, are very weak in drawing, but in the composition and chiaroscuro of the landscape. The night is calm and serene, lighted only by the stars and by the glow of the hunter's lantern which flashes on the bodies of the frightened deer, and throws into relief the rocky ground over which they are wildly running in their efforts to escape. The upper part of the picture is simply but beautifully composed, with a broad, winding river, a thick clump of trees, and the star-lit sky; the dark, heavy foliage massed against the sky, and the silver-grey reflection on the water. Some stunted shrubs and a suggestion of a mountain stream fill up the foreground. The picture is painted in a very low key, but the colour is luminous and full of atmosphere; there is a beautiful sentiment in the whole composition, like Mozart's music in its limpid flowing harmony.

c12.111

The art of the Moguls was not suppressed by the interdicts of Aurangzîb, and did not die with the Mogul dynasty, for though, like our modern art, it was divorced from religion and regarded by the Court only as a distraction and amusement, it quickly grafted itself on to the older Buddhist and Hindu schools, and thus became truly Indian—a national tradition and part of national culture—

c12.112

though for the purpose of historical classification we may still call it "Mogul."

c12.113

Even under the depressing influences of the nineteenth century, Indian art could create things of beauty recalling the strength and spiritual fervour of its former days, and in Northern India there are still painters following the old traditions who, but for the prevailing ignorance of art and the generally vitiated taste of the "educated" classes in India, would be honoured as artists of distinction were under Hindu and Mogul rule.

c12.114

Plate LXVI., "Travellers round a Camp-fire," is from a modern picture in the Calcutta Art Gallery, which is not unworthy of comparison with the great *genre* works of the old Dutch school; though the methods are different there is the same sincerity in the execution, the same feeling for the poetry of chiaroscuro. A group of travellers are seated round a blazing fire in the compound of a *dharmasala*, a native rest-house. The artist has been attracted by the effect of the firelight in the darkness, and, with the simplicity and directness of true genius, he has given a wonderful "impression" of it—what Whistler would have called a symphony in black, gold, and green. We see some figures of the circle in the full glare of the firelight placed in bold relief against the darkness of the night; others silhouetted against the blaze; the reflection on the walls, the trunks, and lower branches of the trees; the flash on the window and under the eaves of the house; the ghostly shadows, and the [Figure: PLATE LXVII

c12.115

Part enlarged to about three times the original size]

c12.116

Part enlarged to about three times the original size depths of the all-environing gloom relieved by the glimmer of the starlit sky.

c12.118

Every one familiar with Indian mofussil life will recognise the truthfulness of the native types given with such intense concentration and dramatic skill. The young man, half in shadow, telling a story; the old man with a sleeping child on his lap, and the two old men with whom he is conversing—one smoking a hookah, the other resting with his hand under his chin, are all masterpieces of characteristic drawing.

c12.119

Plates LXVIII. and LXIX. are also modern pictures: they give an aspect of Indian art which is more familiar, for here we have the daylight and the full strength of an Indian artist's palette when he revels in the glow and warmth of tropical sunshine. The first is an unfinished picture, and, besides its beautiful sentiment and charm of colour, is especially interesting for revealing the artist's technical methods.

c12.120

Three young and high-born Indian ladies, in the seclusion of the zanana garden, are taking refreshments under the shade of trees on the margin of a lake. Their attendants stand respectfully behind at a distance. Unobserved and at their ease, the ladies throw aside their upper garments; they are cooling their feet in the water, and conversing gaily. Their skin is as delicately fair as the colour of the tea-rose, and their features pure and noble—the kind of beauty that Botticelli loved to paint. Their attitudes, suggesting the free and happy nonchalance of youth, are contrasted with the restrained and respectful demeanour of the servants who are bringing refreshments.

c12.121

The forms of the trees are painted in with great strength and sense of decorative effect. The vivid contrasts of pure colour, laid on uncompromisingly without softening or half-tones, give the warmth and brightness of an Indian atmosphere, and help to sustain the note of youthful freshness and enjoyment struck in the composition of the principal figures.

c12.122

"A Music-party," Plate LXIX., is an example of the popular art of the present day, founded on the old traditions, which has nearly succumbed to the debasing influences of modern Indian life. There is an artistic quality in this picture which, in spite of the crudeness of the drawing, makes it infinitely more delightful than any of the Anglicised and commercialised Indian art, sometimes more sophisticated, but always insincere, and therefore worthless, which is supplanting it.

c12.123

Like the pure melody of an old folk-song, it is a true creation of national sentiment, of the poetic impulse which flows spontaneously from the heart of a people inspired by the joy of life and love of beauty. In the previous illustrations we have seen how an Indian artist shows the "gloom of gloom"; here we have the "sunshine of sunshine," given with the same pure delight with which the lark trills his song of joy in the high heavens on a summer morning. The figures in [Figure: PLATE LXVIII IN THE ZENANA GARDEN]

c12.124

IN THE ZANANA GARDEN

c12.126

this picture are by no means attractive types, or very deeply studied as to character; but their glowing draperies and the gay colours of the musical instruments, together with the pearly tones of the marble and the bright hues of the flowers, serve the purpose of the artist—to express the beauty and the gladness of the radiant Indian sunlight.

c12.127

And, just as in Indian music there are no complicated harmonies, but a subtle flow of pure intensive melody, so in painting, too, the Indian artist eschews strong shadows and broken colours, producing an effect of light and atmosphere by the perfect rhythm of his colour-music.

c12.128

In all of these paintings, though the art is entirely spontaneous and unaffected, the very Indian qualities of infinite patience and perfect self-control are strongly manifested. Patience unlimited is bestowed upon detail apparently the most insignificant which the artist thinks necessary, but everything is rigorously excluded which he thinks foreign to his purpose. There is no self-advertisement, no cheap effects to attract the applause of the ignorant, no vulgar trickery or playing to the gallery. This restraint and self-control the inartistic mind, accustomed to the loud self-assertion and aggressive realism of common modern painting, often mistakes for defective power of expression.

c12.129

A Japanese writer of the eighteenth century, quoted by Dr. Anderson, gives a very keen criticism of the realistic tendency of modern European art. “It is the fault of foreign pictures that they dive too deeply into realities, and preserve many details that were better suppressed. . . . Such works are but as groups of words. The Japanese picture should aspire to be a poem of form and colour."¹

c12.130

¹ "Pictorial Arts of Japan," vol. ii., p. 242.

c12.131

It is just in this different idea of realism and different outlook upon nature that we find the gulf which separates Eastern thought and Eastern art from Western. The difference, which the European and Anglicised Indian attribute to defective technical powers or undeveloped intellect, is really due to a different intellectual atmosphere and a different artistic temperament, created by the different answers which East and West give to the question—what is reality?

c12.132

It is chiefly because the modern European usually refuses to recognise anything which is not evident to his five known senses that he finds the difference so irreconcileable and the gulf so impassable. The Indian artist lives in a world of his own imagination, where the stolid Anglo-Saxon is unable to follow him; but, until the Western pedagogue brought Indian culture into contempt and stifled the inherited artistic instincts of Indian youth with his own pedantic formularies, the Indian artist found his traditional methods were perfectly adequate for obtaining that response from his public which every artist needs.

c12.133

It is one of the characteristics of a healthy national art that the artist has no need of vulgar

c12.135

A MUSIC PARTY

c12.137

extraneous effects to make himself appreciated by his public. He is the exponent of national art-culture, not a specialist shut up in a narrow domain of knowledge from which the world at large is excluded. He, therefore, can be sure that a suggestion of his own thought-impressions will evoke a response from his public, just as a note of music finds a response in every wire tuned to the same pitch through which the vibration passes. Relying on this knowledge of sympathetic response in his public, he develops his representation of the natural facts and phenomena which form the framework of his art just to the point at which he knows it will communicate to others the exact impression which exists in his own mind, and does not attempt a laboured and superfluous explanation of irrevelant facts. The imagination of the public he is addressing supplies the complement of the imagination of the artist.

c12.138

Since the pernicious principles of the Italian Renaissance, the bigotry of Puritanism, and the pedantry of pseudo-classical education combined with modern commercialism to destroy the national art of Europe, the public has demanded from the artist not imagination and ideas, but facts—archæological, historical, biographical or otherwise, relevant or irrelevant—only facts which it can understand. When an imaginative artist appears he must now address an unimaginative public through a go-between, an art-critic, who explains as best he can in words what the artist intends to explain with his pencil, brush, or chisel, so that society, which does not like to confess itself Philistine, may talk glibly of what it does not know or feel.

c12.139

Art limps badly upon these literary crutches, and in the artificial conditions of modern life there is no longer that mutual understanding between the artist and his public which existed when art was a national language of much greater intellectual and moral influence than mere book-learning. The curse of our false classicism, so utterly inconsistent with the true spirit of ancient culture, now hangs heavy upon the national art of India, and the educated Indian, trained in the sordid and squalid atmosphere of Indian universities, becomes completely out of touch with his own national artistic thought, and attributes to Indian art the defects which should properly be ascribed to his own lack of artistic development.

c12.140

The next three illustrations, Plates LXX.-I.-II., show how Indian artists in the early days of British rule, before schools of art were established to teach them what they knew far better themselves, were employed by their European masters, just as their ancestors had been employed in the Court of the Great Mogul. This occupation has been lost to them by the development of photographic science, and by the changed conditions of Anglo-Indian life, which give greater facilities for employing European portrait-painters, but have certainly not raised the standard of public taste. At the same time the spread of the popular belief in the [Figure: PORTRAIT OF AN ANGLO-INDIAN OF THE GEORGIAN PERIOD (*From a drawing by a native artist in the Calcutta Art Gallery*)]

c12.142

inferiority of Indian art, which English education does so much to foster, has taken away from Indian portrait-painters the patronage of their wealthier countrymen.

c12.143

These extremely interesting drawings of Anglo-Indian *burra-sahibs* and *mem-sahibs* living in Bengal in the Georgian period were presented to the Calcutta Art Gallery by Mr. Abanindro Nath Tagore. They were found in the possession of a native artist of Calcutta, one of whose ancestors, Gulab Lal, was employed by the Mogul Court about the year 1719, in the reign of Muhammad Shah. Though lacking the wonderful *finesse* of the best Mogul miniaturists, they are of high artistic merit, and give very amusing glimpses into the Anglo-Indian life of that time.

c12.144

They were probably executed by one of the same family who was working at Murshidabad in the employ of the Nawab Nazim, of Bengal, about 1782.¹ The living representative of this artist family, when I discovered him, had been obliged, from want of encouragement for his art, to give up the profession of a miniature painter, and to look for more remunerative employment in drawing patterns for a European firm which imported Manchester piece-goods. He has now an appointment in the Calcutta School of Art.

c12.145

¹ I am indebted to Mr. H. E. A. Cotton for the following note, which may help to establish the identity of the persons depicted: "In 1781 the Nawab Nazim, at the request of the Governor-General in Council, replaced all the principal native *forjdars*, *thannadars*, and other Nizamat officers by Europeans, but the names of these new arrivals are not given in Walsh's 'History of Moorshedabad.' Mr. E. O. Ives was collector at Moorshedabad (Berhampore) in 1784. From 1773 to 1779 one Martin was Resident at the Nazim's Court. In 1779 Sir John Hadley D'Oyley was appointed. Possibly the portraits of Sir John Macpherson and Stables, members of Hastings' Council, might be amongst them."

c12.146

The condition of most other descendants of the great artists of the Mogul Courts is an equally painful commentary on the decadence of fine art in India. There are still a few at Delhi and Agra who find employment in photographic establishments, or in painting the well-known miniatures on ivory which are bought by tourists as Indian "curiosities." A few of the Indian princes continue to employ court painters, though it is generally considered unprogressive to do so. If they take any practical interest in their art it nearly always means that the painters are sent to Europe, or to an Indian school of art, so that all the Indian artistic traditions which they have inherited may be uprooted.

c12.147

There is, however, a certain amount of popular traditional pictorial art still alive in Northern India, of which the examples given in Plates LII. LXIX. are typical. It is thoroughly true and genuine art, and, if educated Indians were to take an intelligent interest in it, it would form the surest and best foundation on which to build up the revival of Indian painting. But it is to be feared that, until Indian art recovers its lost prestige, few of them would face the ignorant ridicule which such a departure from the accepted views of Indian fine art would bring upon them.

c12.149

PORTRAITS OF ANGLO-INDIANS OF THE GEORGIAN PERIOD (*From drawings by a native artist in the Calcutta Art Gallery*)

c12.150

THE FUTURE OF INDIAN ART

c12.151

In the foregoing brief explanation of Indian sculpture and painting I have endeavoured to indicate, by the aid of some of those masterpieces, unfortunately few, which have been salved from the wreckage of a great civilisation and culture, the principal psychological impulses through which the ideals of Indian fine art have been created. We have seen, first, an epoch inspired by intense religious fervour, analogous to the Romanesque and Gothic epochs of European art, in which the Indian people, dissatisfied with abstract ideals, and yearning for tangible symbols of their spiritual desires and beliefs, began by using the means provided for them by an alien faith and art—just as the early Christians first adopted the art of pagan Rome. Gradually the national consciousness, building on this foundation, evolved its own artistic ideals—ideals as different from the original types as Gothic art differs from Roman—and thus created that Indian art which gave it its inspiration to the whole æsthetic thought of Asia.

c12.152

The illustrations of some of the masterpieces of that great epoch of religious art, and the explanation given, have been, I hope, sufficient to show that the ideals thus realised were not, as archæologists aver, the result of the feeble efforts of undeveloped powers to imitate the degenerate types of the Hellenic school, but original, imaginative creations which, rightly understood, are worthy to rank with the noblest artistic creations of the West.

c12.153

After many centuries, when the spiritual fervour which created the splendid art of Ajanta, Ellora, and Borôbudûr had spent itself, religion in India, as in other countries, began to cloak its own deformities in hollow shows and ceremonies; a corrupt priesthood finding in the misuse of man's most spiritual gifts a specious disguise for a false religion and an easy means of quieting the national conscience. Art, too, always a true reflection of man's spiritual nature, losing its vital forces, began to substitute for original creative energy a mechanical repetition of æsthetic formularies—just as the priest listlessly revolved his praying-wheel, and mumbled endless *mantras* the meaning of which had long been forgotten.

c12.154

The next great wave of religious feeling brought with it a puritanical movement in art. The followers of Muhammad, and perhaps those of Sankaracharya, as a protest against degraded idolatry and superstitious mummery, banished the fine arts from their places of worship; con- [Figure: PORTRAITS OF ANGLO-INDIANS OF THE GEORGIAN PERIOD (*From drawings by a native artist in the Calcutta Art Gallery*)]

c12.155

fusing cause with effect, and vainly hoping, like the Puritans in Europe, that by divorcing art from religion human nature might be purged of hypocrisy, worldliness, and superstition.

c12.156

But the zeal of these ascetic religious reformers, though it had a most disastrous effect upon Indian sculpture, did not suppress the instinct for artistic creation, which has always accompanied great national religious and intellectual impulses. The artistic genius of the Moguls, deprived of the sculptor’s chisel, realised itself in a noble, idealistic architecture—of which the Taj Mahal may be regarded as the consummation—and, under the enlightened patronage of Akbar, a secular school of Indian painting arose, which, though it lacked the high spiritual purpose which inspired the old religious schools, nevertheless deserves the appreciation and careful study of all artists for its perfect sincerity and high technical distinction—qualities which are conspicuously wanting in the degenerate Anglicised art of the present day.

c12.157

I think my illustrations will show that when the Indian artist finds himself on the same plane of thought he is just as capable as the European of drawing the human figure correctly, and of making true transcripts from Nature. The Mogul school, though naturalistically inclined, has this in common with the idealistic art of the Buddhist and Brahmanical epochs, that it always kept in view the highest aim of the artist—to penetrate the soul of things, and to bring us into closer relation with Nature's eternal verities.

c12.158

But when art gave up its birthright as the ethical teacher and spiritual helper of mankind, only to minister to the vanity and self-indulgence of the wealthy and indolent; when man ceased to use his highest creative faculties in the daily worship of his Creator, the Decadence, miscalled in Europe the Renaissance, had already begun. India's loss of spiritual power is the measure of the degradation of her art.

c12.159

In my second chapter I have attempted to describe the anomalous state of the fine arts in India since the beginning of the eighteenth century. The unimaginative Anglo-Saxon succeeded the imaginative Mogul in the sovereignty of India, and the people, distracted by long years of anarchy, accepted the change gladly. We have fulfilled our duties as policemen, and take a just pride in the organisation, peace, and security which we have substituted for chaos, bloodshed, and general brigandage. It is not a small thing, as Sir Mountstuart Grant-Duff said in one of his Elgin addresses, to keep the peace between 250,000,000 of men. But it was inevitable that our success in this direction should lead to even greater responsibilities being thrust upon us. The East came to learn the wisdom of the West, and *nolens volens* we have been compelled to undertake the much more difficult duties of teacher and spiritual adviser as well as those of policeman.

First 138 of 225 passages. Read on

Indian Sculpture and Painting, Illustrated by Typical Masterpieces, with an Explanation of their Motives and Ideals c12: Chapter III. Indian Miniature Painting

Chapter III. Indian Miniature Painting

Linked texts (9)