A History of Fine Art in India and Ceylon, from the Earliest Times to the Present Day c20.s1.73

c20.s1.73

⁵ The word طرح, *tarḥ*, or *ṭarraḥ*, primarily means 'foundation'; e.g. *tarḥ afgandan*, 'to lay a foundation,' *tarḥ-kash*, a 'plan-drawer' (Steingass, *Pers. Dict.*). The transition to the meaning 'outline' was easy, and the word always has that meaning in the signatures to the Indo-Persian drawings, as M. Blochet rightly perceived. Blochmann's erroneous rendering 'back-grounding' in his translation of the *Āīn-i-Akbarī* made the signatures unintelligible. 'Painting' or 'colouring', as distinguished from 'outline', is expressed by either the Arabic word عمل, *a'mal*, 'execution,' or the Persian term *rang-āmezī*, 'colouring.' When *a'mal* stands alone, it implies execution of the picture by a single artist. The term *rang-āmezī*, to signify 'colouring', is preferred in the Jaipur *Razmnāmah*.