A History of Fine Art in India and Ceylon, from the Earliest Times to the Present Day c15.s5.1

c15.s5.1

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.