A History of Fine Art in India and Ceylon, from the Earliest Times to the Present Day c20.s3.15

c20.s3.15

The art may be fairly described as purely secular, chiefly concerned with the pomps and vanities of the life of the rich, and occasionally venturing into the land of romance. There is hardly a trace of religious sentiment, unless it is to be detected in the occasional sympathetic delineation of a grave and revered ‘mullah’. But even the holy men are caricatured occasionally. In some of the Ibrāhīm-bin-Adham pictures, miscalled ‘Angels ministering unto Christ’ (*ante*, p. 464), the leading idea seems to be mockery of the ‘Disgusted Darvīsh’. The Fathpur-Sīkrī frescoes, although in some cases dealing with religious subjects, were treated as means of decoration rather than as works of piety.