A History of Fine Art in India and Ceylon, from the Earliest Times to the Present Day c20.s1.75

c20.s1.75

They are avowed imitations of Persian work of the Tīmūrid school, and are not as good as the prototypes. The composition is usually overcrowded. The subjects, in accordance with Mongol taste, are frequently horrible and disgusting. Nothing could be more repulsive than the picture (48/117) in the Clarke MS. representing the execution ground, on which nine wretches are being torn to pieces by elephants, while two more, standing in the corner near the gallows, await their turn. Such a picture proves that, even under Akbar’s comparatively mild government, the administration of justice was associated with much sanguinary cruelty, common, unhappily, in most countries during that age.