A History of Fine Art in India and Ceylon, from the Earliest Times to the Present Day c20.s1.77

c20.s1.77

During Akbar’s reign (1556–1605) and a portion of Jahāngīr’s (1605–27) the standing portrait figures are usually represented in profile in a formal, conventional manner, with the right hand holding up a flower or jewel, and the feet placed one in front of the other. Gradually this stiff formalism was dropped, and men and women were drawn in natural attitudes. The more ancient Indo-Persian works, like their Persian models, follow unreservedly the style known to modern critics as ‘primitive’, that is to say, a style marked by the total lack of roundness, depth of tone, and aerial perspective, every object being represented as absolutely flat. During the later years of Jahāngīr’s reign and subsequently, this flat style was modified by the Indian artists, who frequently introduced slight line shading with admirable effect, so contriving to give their figures a sufficient degree of roundness with wonderfully few strokes. The change adds much to the attractiveness of seventeenth-century Indian work in European eyes.