A History of Fine Art in India and Ceylon, from the Earliest Times to the Present Day c15.s5: Section V. Eighteenth-Century Painting, Chiefly Mythological

A History of Fine Art in India and Ceylon, from the Earliest Times to the Present Day c15.s5

Language: English

Section V. Eighteenth-Century Painting, Chiefly Mythological

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During the eighteenth century Hindu artists trained in the style of the Indo-Persian school, which forms the subject of Chapter XIV, ceasing to interest themselves in scenes of courtly life or aristocratic amusement, often devoted their talents to the illustration of the imaginative conceptions and legends of their own mythology. From the merely technical point of view the numerous works thus produced might be regarded as a variety of the Indo-Persian class, descended from the book illustrations of the *Razmnāma* and similar works translated from the Indian languages into Persian by Akbar's order; and it would be possible to treat them simply as such. For instance, the British Museum Catalogue, in the description of the manuscripts, Or. 4769, 4770, truly states that 'the drawings are remarkable for their extreme delicacy, the minute delineation of every detail, and the richness and artistic choice of colour'—precisely the qualities which distinguish the best Indo-Persian work.¹ But the subjects and inspiration of the drawings in those volumes are so thoroughly Hindu that to discuss the contents along with the Indo-Persian pictures would be inconvenient. The two series, although closely related in technique, are essentially distinct in spirit, and it is more satisfactory to regard the Hindu mythological works as forming a separate class.

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¹ These two volumes were sold for £250 at the Beckford sale.

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In the course of the subsequent discussion of Indo-Persian art emphasis will be laid upon the undoubtedly necessary inference that the Hindu artists, who quickly and successfully assimilated Persian teaching, must have had previous training upon Hindu lines. The practically total loss of all specimens of native Indian painting between Ajaṇṭā and Akbar precludes us from tracing the evolution and history of mediaeval indigenous art. We can only guess what that art may have been by studying the modified Indian art of Turkistan described in Section II of this chapter, and examining the character of the illustrations by Hindu artists in the books prepared for Akbar's library.

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The Persian adaptation of the *Mahābhārata*, entitled the *Razmnāma*, has a preface by Abūl Fāzl, dated A. D. 1588. The best copy, now at Jaipur, which is said to have cost £40,000, contains 169 pictures, or 'miniatures', most of which have been reproduced in the magnificent volume edited by Colonel Hendley. The traditional skill of the Hindus in drawing animals, especially monkeys and elephants, is well illustrated by the works of the artist named Bābū, as for example Plate XXI in Colonel Hendley's book. The Hindu tradition is also apparent in the treatment of trees and plants, and in the use of indigo blue as the colour for the bodies of divinities. Many of the pictures are purely Hindu in feeling—e. g. Plate XXIX by Kānha, representing antelopes gambolling in a forest; Plate XIII by Tulsī, the choice by Damayantī of Nala as her husband (reproduced in Pl. LXV); and Pl. LXXVIII—Rāja Sudarsan and his wife as hermits—by Jaswant and Tārā.

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After Akbar's time Hindu work, that is to say, work with specially Hindu characteristics, is little in evidence until the eighteenth century, when the political Plate LXV. Damayantī choosing Nala as her husband; from Jaipur *Razmnāma*. (Pl. XIII of Hendley, *Memorials of the Jeypore Exhibition*, vol. iv.)

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changes consequent upon the battle of Plassey (1757), no doubt, must have had a stimulating effect upon Hindu activity. Multitudes of works were then produced, mostly Indo-Persian in technique, but thoroughly Hindu in subject and feeling. Probably, as Dr. Coomaraswamy thinks, several distinct local schools may be distinguished; but the detailed examination of the pictures is not yet advanced sufficiently to warrant such nice discrimination. The examples preserved vary enormously in merit, many being coarse daubs, others of middling quality, and a few of high excellence.

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Some, like the illustrations in Or. 4769, 4770, mentioned above, believed to be the work of a Pārsī artist, and probably dating from the early years of the century, emulate the meticulous delicacy so much affected by Shahjahān's artists. But most of the works of the class are executed in a broader style, apt to degenerate into coarse daubing. Indigo blue is largely used for the bodies of divinities, and the scheme of colour generally is not quite the same as in Indo-Persian work.

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The technical and artistic qualities of the pictures are often obscured by the choice of repulsive subjects essentially unfit for artistic treatment. The hideous, grotesque, and horrible figments of Hindu imagination run wild cannot be made tolerable to the aesthetic sense by any cleverness or delicacy of execution. Hindu artists love to depict the ten incarnations of Vishnu, and no doubt edify their fellow believers, but no amount of edification to an orthodox Hindu can give the more grotesque and disgusting incarnations a right to figure as subjects for works of art. The fine volume, Or. 4769 in the British Museum, already referred to, is utterly spoiled from the aesthetic point of view by the subjects selected. The companion volume, Or. 4770, provides more agreeable representations of incidents from the *Mahābhārata*.

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Happily, the inexhaustible fountain of Hindu mythological imagination provides a group of subjects which invite the freest play of fancy, and give unlimited opportunities for artistic treatment. During the eighteenth century, the class of material alluded to, the symbolism connected with the 'musical modes', was exploited by numerous artists, whose works were eagerly collected by Warren Hastings and his contemporaries and brought by them to Europe, where they now enrich various libraries, museums, and private collections. The works in question, known as *Rāgmālās*, or 'Garlands of Musical Modes', are characterized by singular tenderness of sentiment, and present examples of some of the best pictorial work ever produced in India. Such praise applies, of course, only to specimens of the highest class. The collections include much rubbish.

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Before proceeding to describe and reproduce a few select typical examples, an attempt must be made to give some notion of the strange manner in which Hindu thought associates music with painting. Even with the help of such exposition as I am able to offer, on the authority of Sir William Jones, who had some practical knowledge of both arts, it is not easy for the European mind to discover any real bond of union between a given picture and the sounds which it is supposed to symbolize. Personally, I am wholly unable to trace the connexion, and can discuss the paintings simply with reference to their aesthetic value as expressions of Hindu sentiment, imagination, and observation of nature. I do not know anybody who could explain why a particular design was appropriated to certain music. The association of the various musical modes with the seasons—a subject sufficiently obscure in itself—does not help me much to realize the ideas underlying the pictorial symbolism, and I cannot judge how far any selected work is to be commended for its significance as a suggestion to the eye of certain musical combinations of sounds. To some extent the general nature of the subject appropriate to the illustration of each ‘musical mode’ was fixed by rule or tradition, but the treatment allowed free scope to the exercise of each individual artist’s fancy and skill. The *Rāgmālā* illustrations are of special interest because of their freedom from the fetters of immutable rules, bondage to which has been the chief support of the common belief that India possesses no fine art.

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On the understanding that the lists of musical modes as given by various authorities differ considerably, although the scheme explained below is that most generally accepted, Sir William Jones’s exposition may now be quoted:—

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‘The different position of the two semitones in the scale of seven notes gives birth to seven primary modes; and, as the whole series consists of twelve semitones . . . there are in nature (though not universally in practice) seventy-seven other modes [12 × 7 = 84 - 7 = 77] . . . but the Hindu arrangement is elegantly formed on the variations of the Indian year, and the association of ideas, a powerful auxiliary to the ordinary effect of modulation.

The Modes in this system are deified; and as there are six Seasons in India, namely, two Springs, Summer, Autumn, and two Winters, an original *Rāg*, or God of the Mode, is conceived to preside over a particular season; each principal mode is attended by five *Rāginīs*, or Nymphs of Harmony; each has eight sons, or Genii of the same divine art; and each *Rāg*, with his family, is appropriated to a distinct season, in which alone his melody can be sung or played at prescribed hours of the day or night. . . .

By appropriating a different mode to each of the different seasons, the artists of India connected certain strains with certain ideas, and were able to recall the memory of autumnal merriment at the close of the harvest, or of separation and melancholy (very different from our idea at Calcutta) during the cold months; of reviving hilarity on the revival of blossoms, and complete vernal delight in the month of *Madhu*, or honey; of languor during the dry heats, and of refreshment by the first rains, which cause in this climate a second spring. . . .

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The inventive talents of the Greeks never suggested a more charming allegory than the lovely families of the six *Rāgas*, named in the order of seasons . . . *Bhairava*, *Mālava*, *Srī Rāga*, *Hindola* or *Vasanta*, *Dīpaka*, and *Megha*; each of whom is a genius or demi-god, wedded to five *Rāginīs*, or nymphs, and father of eight little genii, called his *putras*, or sons. . . . These and similar images, but wonderfully diversified, are expressed in a variety of measures, and represented by delicate pencils in the *Rāgmālās*, which all of us have examined, and among which the most beautiful are in the possession of Mr. R. Johnson and Mr. Hay.’ Sir William Jones was of opinion that the symbolism sketched in the foregoing extracts ‘may be considered as the most pleasing invention of the ancient Hindus, and the most beautiful union of painting with poetical mythology and the genuine theory of music'.¹

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¹ Sir W. Jones, 'On the Musical Modes of the Hindus' (*As. Rev.*, iii. 55–87); *Works*, vol. xiii (ed. 1807), p. 312. The essay in the *Researches*, written in 1784, was enlarged subsequently. Sir William died in 1794. Strange tales of the magic power ascribed to the singing of certain *Rāgs* are recorded by Mr. C. T. Naidu in *Ind. Ant.*, xxx (1901), p. 319.

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Perhaps some of my readers who may happen to be skilled musicians will be able to understand the matter better than I can.

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I have not been able to trace the collection of *Rāgmālās* mentioned by Sir W. Jones as having been formed by Mr. Hay; but that of Mr. R. Johnson, the banker of Warren Hastings, was acquired by the India Office Library after the owner's death. The sixty-seven volumes include sixteen of *Rāgmālās* (Nos. XXX–XLIV, and LXI), varying widely in value. Vol. xxx is good. Picture No. 9, *Sārang Rāginī*, represented as a woman caressing antelopes, is a pleasing expression of tender Hindu sentiment.

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Vol. xxxiv is of special interest because it contains thirty-five pictures signed by the artists, Udūt Singh (Nos. 1–18, 24, 30), and Mohan Singh (Nos. 19–23, 25–9, 31–5). The work entitled *Dhanāsarī Rāginī* (No. 27) by Mohan Singh—a slightly tinted, boldly executed sketch of a woman seated under a tree—is well composed and produces an effect like that of an etching (Plate LXVI).

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Vol. xxxv includes a good example of the subject of a lady (*Mālkōs Rāg* 2nd) offering worship (*pūjā*) to a four-headed image of Brahmā, which recurs in vol. xli, where it is treated by Gobind Singh. The almost identical subject, in which a *lingam*, the symbol of Mahādēo, is substituted for the four-headed image, which also is probably a *Rāginī* picture, has been painted charmingly by several artists. The best example that I have seen is a picture (Johnson Coll., vol. l, fol. 1) by Rāi Fath Chand, which depicts a princess, attended by four women, doing reverence to a *lingam* standing on a marble platform in a palace garden. The same motive is prettily rendered in Haughton's engraving from an unknown original in Moor, *Hindu Pantheon*, Pl. XXII, which excited the warm admiration of Prof. Albrecht Weber.² Unfortunately, the engraver allowed himself to take some liberties, and his work cannot be accepted as a perfectly faithful transcript.

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² *Ind. Ant.*, vi. 349.

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An anonymous picture from Bābū Sītarām's collection, labelled 'Umā worshipping Siva', reproduced (Plate LXVII) from a photograph kindly supplied by Dr. Coomaraswamy, may serve as a sample of its class. The landscape in that work shows traces of European influence; in Rāi Fath Chand's work the background is Indo-Persian.

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The deities, Mahādēo and Pārvatī, so often represented by sculptors as seated together in conjugal harmony, were equally good subjects for the less conventional art of the draughtsman and painter. A creditable rendering by Mohan Singh is in volume x of the Johnson collection; but the best version is that in a picture reproduced by Haughton in Plate XVII of Moor's *Hindu Pantheon*. 'The painting or drawing from which Plate 17 is engraved, is, I think,' the author writes,

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[Figure: FIG. 225. Dharmrāja on black bull. (B. M., Or. 4770, fol. 8.)]

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'the most beautiful and highly finished thing I ever saw. I purchased it at Poona for forty rupees (five pounds), but for some time the seller demanded a hundred (twelve guineas) for it.'¹

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¹ Major E. Charles Moor, of the Rosery, Great Bealings, Ipswich, grandson of the author of the *Hindu Pantheon*, exhibited the original of the plate as No. 1163 in the Indian Court of the Festival of Empire, 1911. The happy days when forty rupees were equal to five pounds have long passed away. The present equivalent is £2 13*s.* 4*d.*

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Plate LXVII. Umā worshipping Siva (photo. by Dr. A. K. Coomaraswamy).

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Volume xlii of the Johnson collection, like volume xxxiv, is of special interest as containing a large number of pictures signed by Udūt Singh, Gobind Singh, Mohan Singh, and Ghulām Razā. Four of these, namely, three (Nos. 19, 22, 25) by Udūt Singh, and one (No. 12) by Ghulām Razā, are indecent, the only pictures of the Indo-Persian and Hindu schools, among the hundreds examined by me, to which such a reproach can be applied. Artistically, the twelve contributions by Ghulām Razā are the best. A portrait by him is on fol. 30 of volume lxiv of the same collection.

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The Beckford volumes in the British Museum, Or. 4769, 4770, already noticed more than once, contain some excellent ideal portraits of Hindu deities, with elegant floral borders. I select for reproduction Yama, the Indian Pluto, riding on his buffalo, nearly all in black and white (Plate LXVIII); Dharmrāja, as judge of the dead, on his black bull (Fig. 225); and Byās (Vyāsa) Muni, the supposed compiler of the Vedas, who is represented standing, and holding a rosary. His body is 'wheat-coloured', his skirt purplish-grey, and his turban pink (Fig. 226).

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[Figure: FIG. 226. Byās (Vyāsa) Muni. (B. M., Or. 4770, fol. 26.)]

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The picture, no doubt purely imaginary, of the famous twelfth-century king Pirthīrāj Chauhān, with his queen Urchhī (B. M. Or. 4769, fol. 26), is beautifully delicate work, freely enriched with gold, too elaborate for successful reproduction.

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The album, B. M. Add. 11,747 (No. 97 of *Catal. of Hindī and Panjābī MSS.*), although labelled as a 'Collection of drawings, costume, &c., of the Persians', contains a *Rāgmālā* and many other pictures of Hindu subjects. The explanations of *Rāgmālās* are often written in the Hindī language and character, in this volume and others.

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B. M. Add. 22,363 is a collection of twenty-eight rather large pictures 'in fine Indian style of the eighteenth century, with illuminated borders'. Most of the pictures represent incidents of Eastern tales, passages in the life of Krishna, or some of the *Rāginī* figures. But the best things in the book are the brown hawk on the obverse, and the two camels, on the reverse, of fol. 28, which are not specially Hindu, and may date from the seventeenth century. The camels are reproduced in Fig. 256 in Chapter XIV. The other collections of eighteenth-century Hindu paintings in the British Museum do not merit special notice.

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Plate LXVIII. Yama, god of Death, on buffalo.

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The Bibliothèque Nationale, Paris, possesses many manuscripts adorned with illustrations of Hindu mythology, among which a copy of the *Bhāgavata Purāna* ('Sanskrit-Devanagari,' No. 1), with seventy-six high-class paintings, seems to be the most notable.¹

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¹ Blochet, 'Inventaire' (*Revue des Bibliothèques*, 1899, p. 259).

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H.H. the Mahārāja of Benares is the fortunate owner of a beautifully written and sumptuously illustrated manuscript of the poem by Tulsī Dās, commonly called the *Rāmāyana*, but properly named the *Rāmcharit-mānas*. The book, which is guarded with jealous care, forms five volumes, richly bound in Benares brocade. The illustrations, more than five hundred in number, face each page, and are said to have cost Rs. 160,000. They appear to have been executed at some time in the eighteenth century, but are not signed. The technique generally seems to be that of the Indo-Persian school, gold and silver enrichments being freely used. The subjects, figures, faces, and composition are thoroughly Hindu. His Highness having placed at my disposal nine excellent photographs of selected pictures, three of them are now reproduced.

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Plate LXIX is a queer composition, apparently intended to serve as a frontispiece. The figure under the tree in the left upper corner is labelled as a portrait of the poet, but how far it can claim to be a likeness I cannot say. In the right upper corner his teacher (*guru*) is depicted reading aloud to a party of disciples. Lower down, we find the magic cow, Kāmadhenu, a great snake, Rāma and Sītā, with various other persons and objects mentioned in the poem. The drawing is stiff and formal, and the Chitrakūt hill is represented in a purely conventional manner.

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The next example selected for publication, Plate LXX, ranks much higher as a work of art and evidently is by another hand. It is, indeed, a well-composed and beautiful picture. The child demi-god and his adoring, yet tenderly watchful, mother, so placed in the centre as to rivet the attention of the beholder, are admirably drawn. The female attendants at the sides are perfectly true to nature and typical of Hindu womanhood. The perspective is unusually accurate, and there is no overcrowding. No doubt the original must have many beauties which cannot be seen in a photograph, but even in the reproduction the picture appears to me to be one of the best achievements of Hindu art.

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The third picture chosen, Plate LXXI, is more in the style of the Indo-Persian court scenes. The rich landscape in the distance shows traces of the influence of European paintings.²

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² The 'Childhood of Rāma' has been published as the frontispiece to Mr. G. A. Grierson's profoundly learned work, 'The Modern Vernacular Literature of Hindostan' (Extra No., *J. A. S. B.*, Part I, 1888–9), and in Mr. Growse's translation of the *Rāmcharit-mānas*. Seventy of the pictures have been crudely reproduced in an illustrated edition of the poem, edited by the Nāgarī Pracharinī Sabhā, and published by the Indian Press, Allahabad, 1903. The MS. is slightly described in Mr. E. Greaves's work, *Kashi the City Illustrious, or Benares* (Indian Press, Allahabad, 1904, p. 94). The Mahārāja possesses another MS. of the poem written in Samvat 1704 = A. D. 1647–8, only twenty-four years after the author's death.

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The active patronage afforded to artists by the rulers of Jaipur and Alwar PLATE LXIX. From Benares MS. of *Rāmcharit-mānas*: Tulsī Dās in left upper corner; his *guru* reading in right upper corner; Kāmadhenu, the magic cow; the hill of Chitrakūt, with Rāma, Lachhman, and Sītā, &c.

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(By permission of H.H. the Mahārāja.)

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भयै प्रगट कृपाला दीन दयाला कौशिल्या हित कारी हर्षित महतारी मुनि मन हा
री अद्भुत रूप निहारी

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Plate LXX. Rāma’s Childhood; photo. from the Mahārāja of Benares’ MS., and published in *J.A.S.B.*, Part I, vol. lvii (1888), Special No., frontispiece.

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Plate LXXI. The court of Ajodhya; from Benares MS. of *Rāmcharit-mānas*. (By permission of H.H. the Mahārāja.)

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in Rājputāna has kept art alive in those States. By the kindness of Col. Hendley I am enabled to reproduce a falcon and a vase of flowers, copied by a modern artist from an old Jaipur painting, which are not much inferior in delicacy of execution to seventeenth-century work (Figs. 227, 228). In the original the vase is pale blue, and the flowers brightly coloured.

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FIG. 227. Falcon; copied by a modern artist from old Jaipur painting. (Property of Col. Hendley, C.I.E.)

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FIG. 228. Vase of flowers; copied by a modern artist from an old Jaipur painting. (Col. Hendley, C.I.E.)

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The portrait of Mahārāja Mān Singh of Jodhpur (Fig. 229), painted by Jīwan in 1818 and copied by Chhaju Lāl in 1893, also the property of Col. Hendley, is a good illustration of modern debased work in the Indo-Persian style. Its defects are too obvious to need detailed exposition. In the original the chair is coloured sepia, the robe is white, and the scarf dark blue.

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Probably the best example of modern book illustration in the Indo-Persian style is the manuscript *Gulistān* of the Alwar Library prepared for Mahārāja Bannī Singh (1824–57), an ardent art collector and liberal patron. The pictures have been sumptuously reproduced under Col. Hendley's direction in *Ulwar and its Art Treasures* (Griggs, 1888). The text of the manuscript was written by Āgā Mīrzā of Delhi in the course of twelve years; the beautiful borders were designed and painted by Nathū Shah and Kari Abdul Rahmān of Delhi, and the illustrations

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[Figure: FIG. 229. Mahārāja Mān Singh of Jodhpur; by Jīwan (A. D. 1818); copied by Chhaju Lāl (1893). (Property of Col. Hendley, C.I.E.)]

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[Figure: FIG. 230. Tigers; from Alwar *Gulistān*. (Col. Hendley, C.I.E.)]

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[Figure: FIG. 231. Black buck; from Alwar *Gulistān*. (Col. Hendley, C.I.E.)]

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are the work of Ghulām Ali Khan and Baldēo of Alwar. The small medallions or panels done in gold and colours, reproduced in Pl. LXIV–LXVI of Col. Hendley's work, are exquisitely wrought. Two are here given from a separate sheet of copies lent by Col. Hendley (Figs. 230, 231).

Linked texts (4)

Bhāgavatapurāṇa — Vyāsa, Sanskrit
Rāmacaritamānasa — Tulsīdās 1574, Hindi
Mahābhārata — Vyāsa, Sanskrit
Vālmīkirāmāyaṇa — Vālmīki, Sanskrit