Indian Sculpture and Painting, Illustrated by Typical Masterpieces, with an Explanation of their Motives and Ideals c12.14

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.