Mughal painting is a style of painting on paper confined to
miniatures either as book illustrations or as single works to be kept in albums (
muraqqa), from the territory of the
Mughal Empire in
South Asia. It emerged from
Persian miniature painting (itself partly of
Chinese origin) and developed in the court of the
Mughal Empire of the 16th to 18th centuries. Battles, legendary stories, hunting scenes, wildlife, royal life, mythology, as well as other subjects have all been frequently depicted in paintings.
The Mughal emperors were Muslims and they are credited with consolidating Islam in South Asia, and spreading Muslim (and particularly Persian) arts and culture as well as the faith.
Mughal painting immediately took a much greater interest in realistic portraiture than was typical of Persian miniatures. Animals and plants were the main subject of many miniatures for albums, and were more realistically depicted. Although many classic works of
Persian literature continued to be illustrated, as well as Indian works, the taste of the Mughal emperors for writing memoirs or diaries, begun by Babur, provided some of the most lavishly decorated texts, such as the
Padshahnama genre of official histories. Subjects are rich in variety and include portraits, events and scenes from court life, wild life and hunting scenes, and illustrations of battles. The Persian tradition of richly decorated borders framing the central image (mostly trimmed in the images shown here) was continued, as was a modified form of the Persian convention of an elevated viewpoint.
The Mughal painting style later spread to other Indian courts, both Muslim and Hindu, and later Sikh, and was often used to depict Hindu subjects. This was mostly in northern India. It developed many regional styles in these courts, tending to become bolder but less refined. These are often described as "post-Mughal", "sub-Mughal" or "provincial Mughal". The mingling of foreign Persian and indigenous Indian elements was a continuation of the patronage of other aspects of foreign culture as initiated by the earlier Turko-Afghan
Delhi Sultanate
The Delhi Sultanate was an Islamic empire based in Delhi that stretched over large parts of the Indian subcontinent for 320 years (1206–1526). , and the introduction of it into the subcontinent by various Central Asian Turkish dynasties, such as the
Ghaznavids
The Ghaznavid dynasty ( fa, غزنویان ''Ġaznaviyān'') was a culturally Persianate, Sunni Muslim dynasty of Turkic ''mamluk'' origin, ruling, at its greatest extent, large parts of Persia, Khorasan, much of Transoxiana and the northwest ...
.
Subjects
Portraits
From fairly early the Mughal style made a strong feature of realistic portraiture, normally in profile, and influenced by Western prints, which were available at the Mughal court. This had never been a feature of either
Persian miniature or earlier Indian painting. The pose, rarely varied in portraits, was to have the head in strict profile, but the rest of the body half turned towards the viewer. For a long time portraits were always of men, often accompanied by generalized female servants or
concubines; but there is scholarly debate about the representation of female court members in portraiture. Some scholars claim there are no known extant likenesses of figures like
Jahanara Begum and
Mumtaz Mahal, and others attribute miniatures, for example from the
Dara Shikoh
Dara Shikoh ( fa, ), also known as Dara Shukoh, (20 March 1615 – 30 August 1659) was the eldest son and heir-apparent of the Mughal emperor Shah Jahan. Dara was designated with the title ''Padshahzada-i-Buzurg Martaba'' ("Prince of High Rank" ...
album or the
Freer Gallery of Art
The Freer Gallery of Art is an art museum of the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C. focusing on Asian art. The Freer and the Arthur M. Sackler Gallery together form the National Museum of Asian Art in the United States. The Freer and Sac ...
mirror portrait, to these famous noblewomen. The single idealized figure of the
Riza Abbasi
Reza Abbasi, Riza yi-Abbasi or Reza-e Abbasi, رضا عباسی in Persian, usually Reza Abbasi also Aqa Reza (see below) or Āqā Riżā Kāshānī ( – 1635) was the leading Persian miniaturist of the Isfahan School during the later Safavid ...
type was less popular, but fully painted scenes of lovers in a palace setting became popular later. Drawings of genre scenes, especially showing holy men, whether Muslim or Hindu, were also popular.
Akbar had an album, now dispersed, consisting entirely of portraits of figures at his enormous court which had a practical purpose; according to chroniclers he used to consult it when discussing appointments and the like with his advisors, apparently to jog his memory of who the people being discussed were. Many of them, like medieval European images of saints, carried objects associated with them to help identification, but otherwise the figures stand on a plain background. There are a number of fine portraits of Akbar, but it was under his successors
Jahangir
Nur-ud-Din Muhammad Salim (30 August 1569 – 28 October 1627), known by his imperial name Jahangir (; ), was the fourth Mughal Emperor, who ruled from 1605 until he died in 1627. He was named after the Indian Sufi saint, Salim Chishti.
Ear ...
and Shah Jahan that the portrait of the ruler became firmly established as a leading subject in Indian miniature painting, which was to spread to both Muslim and Hindu princely courts across India.
From the 17th century equestrian portraits, mostly of rulers, became another popular borrowing from the West. Another new type of image showed the
Jharokha Darshan (literally "balcony view/worship"), or public display of the emperor to the court, or the public, which became a daily ceremonial under Akbar,
Jahangir
Nur-ud-Din Muhammad Salim (30 August 1569 – 28 October 1627), known by his imperial name Jahangir (; ), was the fourth Mughal Emperor, who ruled from 1605 until he died in 1627. He was named after the Indian Sufi saint, Salim Chishti.
Ear ...
and
Shah Jahan
Shihab-ud-Din Muhammad Khurram (5 January 1592 – 22 January 1666), better known by his regnal name Shah Jahan I (; ), was the fifth emperor of the Mughal Empire, reigning from January 1628 until July 1658. Under his emperorship, the Mugha ...
, before being stopped as un-Islamic by Aurangzeb. In these scenes, the emperor is shown at top on a balcony or at a window, with a crowd of courtiers below, sometimes including many portraits. Like the increasingly large
halos these emperors were given in single portraits, the
iconography
Iconography, as a branch of art history, studies the identification, description and interpretation of the content of images: the subjects depicted, the particular compositions and details used to do so, and other elements that are distinct fro ...
reflects the aspiration of the later Mughals to project an image as the representative of
Allah
Allah (; ar, الله, translit=Allāh, ) is the common Arabic word for God. In the English language, the word generally refers to God in Islam. The word is thought to be derived by contraction from '' al- ilāh'', which means "the god", an ...
on earth, or even as having a quasi-divine status themselves.
Other images show the enthroned emperor having meetings, receiving visitors, or
in durbar, or formal council. These and royal portraits incorporated in hunting scenes became highly popular types in later
Rajput painting and other post-Mughal styles.
Another popular subject area was realistic studies of animals and plants, mostly flowers; the text of the ''
Baburnama
The ''Bāburnāma'' ( chg, ; literally: ''"History of Babur"'' or ''"Letters of Babur"''; alternatively known as ''Tuzk-e Babri'') is the memoirs of Ẓahīr-ud-Dīn Muhammad Bābur (1483–1530), founder of the Mughal Empire and a great-great- ...
'' includes a number of descriptions of such subjects, which were illustrated in the copies made for Akbar. These subjects also had specialist artists, including
Ustad Mansur.
Milo C. Beach
Milo Cleveland Beach is an American art historian and the former director of the Arthur M. Sackler Gallery and the Freer Gallery of Art.
Beach is a historian of Indian art, specifically Indian painting. He graduated from Harvard College and credi ...
argues that "Mughal naturalism has been greatly overstressed. Early animal imagery consists of variations on a theme, rather than new, innovative observations". He sees considerable borrowings from Chinese animal paintings on paper, which seem not to have been highly valued by Chinese collectors, and so reached India.
Illustrated books
In the formative period of the style, under Akbar, the imperial workshop produced a number of heavily illustrated copies of established books in Persian. One of the first, probably from the 1550s and now mostly in the
Cleveland Museum of Art, was a ''
Tutinama
Tutinama (), literal meaning "Tales of a Parrot", is a 14th-century series of 52 stories in Persian. The work remains well-known largely because of a number of lavishly illustrated manuscripts, especially a version containing 250 miniature paintin ...
'' with some 250 rather simple and rather small miniatures, most with only a few figures. In contrast the ''
Hamzanama'' Akbar commissioned had unusually large pages, of densely woven cotton rather than the usual paper, and the images were very often crowded with figures. The work was "a continuous series of romantic interludes, threatening events, narrow escapes, and violent acts", supposedly telling the life of an uncle of
Muhammad. Akbar's manuscript had a remarkable total of some 1400 miniatures, one on every opening, with the relevant text written on the back of the page, presumably to be read to the emperor as he looked at each image. This colossal project took most of the 1560s, and probably beyond. These and a few other early works saw a fairly unified Mughal workshop style emerge by around 1580.
Other large projects included biographies or memoirs of the
Mughal dynasty.
Babur
Babur ( fa, , lit= tiger, translit= Bābur; ; 14 February 148326 December 1530), born Mīrzā Zahīr ud-Dīn Muhammad, was the founder of the Mughal Empire in the Indian subcontinent. He was a descendant of Timur and Genghis Khan through his ...
, its founder, had written classic memoirs, which his grandson Akbar had translated into Persian, as the ''
Baburnama
The ''Bāburnāma'' ( chg, ; literally: ''"History of Babur"'' or ''"Letters of Babur"''; alternatively known as ''Tuzk-e Babri'') is the memoirs of Ẓahīr-ud-Dīn Muhammad Bābur (1483–1530), founder of the Mughal Empire and a great-great- ...
'' (1589), and then produced in four lavishly illustrated copies, with up to 183 miniatures each. The ''
Akbarnama'' was Akbar's own commissioned biography or chronicle, produced in many versions, and the tradition continued with
Jahangir
Nur-ud-Din Muhammad Salim (30 August 1569 – 28 October 1627), known by his imperial name Jahangir (; ), was the fourth Mughal Emperor, who ruled from 1605 until he died in 1627. He was named after the Indian Sufi saint, Salim Chishti.
Ear ...
's autobiography ''
Tuzk-e-Jahangiri'' (or ''Jahangirnama'') and a celebratory biography of
Shah Jahan
Shihab-ud-Din Muhammad Khurram (5 January 1592 – 22 January 1666), better known by his regnal name Shah Jahan I (; ), was the fifth emperor of the Mughal Empire, reigning from January 1628 until July 1658. Under his emperorship, the Mugha ...
, called the ''
Padshahnama'', which brought the era of the large illustrated imperial biography to an end, around 1650. Akbar commissioned a copy of the ''
Zafarnama'', a biography of his distant ancestor
Timur, but though he had his aunt write a biography of his father
Humayun, no illustrated manuscript survives.
Volumes of the classics of
Persian poetry
Persian literature ( fa, ادبیات فارسی, Adabiyâte fârsi, ) comprises oral compositions and written texts in the Persian language and is one of the world's oldest literatures. It spans over two-and-a-half millennia. Its sources h ...
usually had rather fewer miniatures, often around twenty, but often these were of the highest quality. Akbar also had the Hindu epic poems translated into Persian, and produced in illustrated versions. Four are known of the ''
Razmnama'', a ''
Mahabharata'' in Persian, from between 1585 and c. 1617. Akbar had at least one copy of the Persian version of the ''
Ramayana''.
Origins
Mughal court painting, as opposed to looser variants of the Mughal style produced in regional courts and cities, drew little from indigenous non-Muslim traditions of painting. These were Hindu and Jain, and earlier Buddhist, and almost entirely religious. They existed mainly in relatively small illustrations to texts, but also mural paintings, and paintings in folk styles on cloth, in particular ones on scrolls made to be displayed by popular singers or reciters of the Hindu epics and other stories, performed by travelling specialists; very few early examples of these last survive. A vivid
Kashmir
Kashmir () is the northernmost geographical region of the Indian subcontinent. Until the mid-19th century, the term "Kashmir" denoted only the Kashmir Valley between the Great Himalayas and the Pir Panjal Range. Today, the term encompas ...
i tradition of mural paintings flourished between the 9th and 17th centuries, as seen in the murals of
Alchi Monastery
Alchi Monastery or Alchi Gompa (also Alci) is a Tibetan Buddhist monastery, known more as a monastic complex (chos-'khor) of temples in Alchi village in the Leh District, under the Ladakh Autonomous Hill Development Council of the Ladakh Unio ...
or
Tsaparang: a number of Kashimiri painters were employed by
Akbar
Abu'l-Fath Jalal-ud-din Muhammad Akbar (25 October 1542 – 27 October 1605), popularly known as Akbar the Great ( fa, ), and also as Akbar I (), was the third Mughal emperor, who reigned from 1556 to 1605. Akbar succeeded his father, Hum ...
and some influence of their art can be seen in various Mughal works, such as the ''
Hamzanama''.
In contrast Mughal painting was "almost entirely secular", although religious figures were sometimes portrayed.
Realism, especially in portraits of both people and animals, became a key aim, far more than in Persian painting, let alone the Indian traditions. There was already a Muslim tradition of miniature painting under the Turko-Afghan
Sultanate of Delhi
The Delhi Sultanate was an Islamic empire based in Delhi that stretched over large parts of the Indian subcontinent for 320 years (1206–1526). which the Mughals overthrew, and like the Mughals, and the very earliest of Central Asian invaders into the subcontinent, patronized foreign culture. These paintings were painted on loose-leaf paper, and were usually placed between decorated wooden covers. Although the first surviving manuscripts are from
Mandu in the years either side of 1500, there were very likely earlier ones which are either lost, or perhaps now attributed to southern Persia, as later manuscripts can be hard to distinguish from these by style alone, and some remain the subject of debate among specialists. By the time of the Mughal invasion, the tradition had abandoned the high viewpoint typical of the Persian style, and adopted a more realistic style for animals and plants.
No miniatures survive from the reign of the founder of the dynasty, Babur, nor does he mention commissioning any in his
memoirs, the ''
Baburnama
The ''Bāburnāma'' ( chg, ; literally: ''"History of Babur"'' or ''"Letters of Babur"''; alternatively known as ''Tuzk-e Babri'') is the memoirs of Ẓahīr-ud-Dīn Muhammad Bābur (1483–1530), founder of the Mughal Empire and a great-great- ...
''. Copies of this were illustrated by his descendents, Akbar in particular, with many portraits of the many new animals Babur encountered when he invaded India, which are carefully described. However some surviving un-illustrated manuscripts may have been commissioned by him, and he comments on the style of some famous past Persian masters. Some older illustrated manuscripts have his seal on them; the Mughals came from a long line stretching back to
Timur and were fully assimilated into
Persianate culture, and expected to patronize literature and the arts.
The style of the Mughal school developed within the royal
atelier. Knowledge was primarily transmitted through familial and apprenticeship relationships, and the system of joint manuscript production which brought multiple artists together for single works. In some cases, senior artists would draw the illustrations in outline, and more junior ones would usually apply the colours, especially for background areas. Where no artist names are inscribed, it is very difficult to trace Imperial Mughal paintings back to specific artists.
Development
After a tentative start under Humayun, the great period of Mughal painting was during the next three reigns, of
Akbar
Abu'l-Fath Jalal-ud-din Muhammad Akbar (25 October 1542 – 27 October 1605), popularly known as Akbar the Great ( fa, ), and also as Akbar I (), was the third Mughal emperor, who reigned from 1556 to 1605. Akbar succeeded his father, Hum ...
,
Jahangir
Nur-ud-Din Muhammad Salim (30 August 1569 – 28 October 1627), known by his imperial name Jahangir (; ), was the fourth Mughal Emperor, who ruled from 1605 until he died in 1627. He was named after the Indian Sufi saint, Salim Chishti.
Ear ...
and
Shah Jahan
Shihab-ud-Din Muhammad Khurram (5 January 1592 – 22 January 1666), better known by his regnal name Shah Jahan I (; ), was the fifth emperor of the Mughal Empire, reigning from January 1628 until July 1658. Under his emperorship, the Mugha ...
, which covered just over a century between them.
Humayun (1530–1540 and 1555–1556)
When the second Mughal emperor,
Humayun was in exile in
Tabriz in the
Safavid
Safavid Iran or Safavid Persia (), also referred to as the Safavid Empire, '. was one of the greatest Iranian empires after the 7th-century Muslim conquest of Persia, which was ruled from 1501 to 1736 by the Safavid dynasty. It is often conside ...
court of
Shah Tahmasp I
Tahmasp I ( fa, طهماسب, translit=Ṭahmāsb or ; 22 February 1514 – 14 May 1576) was the second shah of Safavid Iran from 1524 to 1576. He was the eldest son of Ismail I and his principal consort, Tajlu Khanum. Ascending the throne after ...
of Persia, he was exposed to Persian miniature painting, and commissioned at least one work there (or in
Kabul), an unusually large painting on cloth of ''Princes of the House of Timur'', now in the
British Museum. Originally a group portrait with his sons, in the next century
Jahangir
Nur-ud-Din Muhammad Salim (30 August 1569 – 28 October 1627), known by his imperial name Jahangir (; ), was the fourth Mughal Emperor, who ruled from 1605 until he died in 1627. He was named after the Indian Sufi saint, Salim Chishti.
Ear ...
had it added to make it a dynastic group including dead ancestors. When Humayun returned to India, he brought two accomplished Persian artists
Abd al-Samad and
Mir Sayyid Ali with him. His usurping brother
Kamran Mirza had maintained a workshop in Kabul, which Humayan perhaps took over into his own. Humayan's major known commission was a ''
Khamsa of Nizami'' with 36 illuminated pages, in which the different styles of the various artists are mostly still apparent. Apart from the London painting, he also commissioned at least two miniatures showing himself with family members, a type of subject that was rare in Persia but common among the Mughals.
Akbar (r. 1556–1605)
During the reign of Humayun's son
Akbar
Abu'l-Fath Jalal-ud-din Muhammad Akbar (25 October 1542 – 27 October 1605), popularly known as Akbar the Great ( fa, ), and also as Akbar I (), was the third Mughal emperor, who reigned from 1556 to 1605. Akbar succeeded his father, Hum ...
(r. 1556–1605), the imperial court, apart from being the centre of administrative authority to manage and rule the vast Mughal empire, also emerged as a centre of cultural excellence. Akbar inherited and expanded his father's library and atelier of court painters, and paid close personal attention to its output. He had studied painting in his youth under
Abd as-Samad, though it is not clear how far these studies went.
Between 1560 and 1566 the ''
Tutinama
Tutinama (), literal meaning "Tales of a Parrot", is a 14th-century series of 52 stories in Persian. The work remains well-known largely because of a number of lavishly illustrated manuscripts, especially a version containing 250 miniature paintin ...
'' ("Tales of a Parrot"), now in the
Cleveland Museum of Art was illustrated, showing "the stylistic components of the imperial Mughal style at a formative stage".
Among other manuscripts, between 1562 and 1577 the atelier worked on an illustrated manuscript of the ''
Hamzanama'' consisting of 1,400 cotton
folios, unusually large at 69 cm x 54 cm (approx. 27 x 20 inches) in size. This huge project "served as a means of moulding the disparate styles of his artists, from Iran and from different parts of India, into one unified style". By the end, the style reached maturity, and "the flat and decorative compositions of Persian painting have been transformed by creating a believable space in which characters painted in the round can perform".
Sa'di's masterpiece The ''
Gulistan'' was produced at
Fatehpur Sikri in 1582, a ''
Darab Nama'' around 1585; the
Khamsa of Nizami (British Library, Or. 12208)
The illuminated manuscript ''Khamsa of Nizami'' British Library, Or. 12208 is a lavishly illustrated manuscript of the ''Khamsa'' or "five poems" of Nizami Ganjavi, a 12th-century Persian poet, which was created for the Mughal Emperor Akbar in the ...
followed in the 1590s and
Jami's ''Baharistan'' around 1595 in
Lahore. As Mughal-derived painting spread to
Hindu
Hindus (; ) are people who religiously adhere to Hinduism.Jeffery D. Long (2007), A Vision for Hinduism, IB Tauris, , pages 35–37 Historically, the term has also been used as a geographical, cultural, and later religious identifier for ...
courts the texts illustrated included the Hindu
epic
Epic commonly refers to:
* Epic poetry, a long narrative poem celebrating heroic deeds and events significant to a culture or nation
* Epic film, a genre of film with heroic elements
Epic or EPIC may also refer to:
Arts, entertainment, and medi ...
s including the
Ramayana and the
Mahabharata; themes with animal fables; individual portraits; and paintings on scores of different themes. Mughal style during this period continued to refine itself with elements of realism and naturalism coming to the fore. Between 1570–1585, Akbar hired over one hundred painters to practice Mughal style painting.
Akbar's rule established a celebratory theme among the Mughal Empire. In this new period, Akbar persuaded artist to focus on showing off spectacles and including grand symbols like elephants in their work to create the sense of a prospering empire. Along with this new mindset, Akbar also encouraged his people to write down and find a way to record what they remembered from earlier times to ensure that others would be able to remember the greatness of the Mughal empire.
Jahangir (1605–1625)
Jahangir
Nur-ud-Din Muhammad Salim (30 August 1569 – 28 October 1627), known by his imperial name Jahangir (; ), was the fourth Mughal Emperor, who ruled from 1605 until he died in 1627. He was named after the Indian Sufi saint, Salim Chishti.
Ear ...
had an artistic inclination and during his reign Mughal painting developed further. Brushwork became finer and the colours lighter. Jahangir was also deeply influenced by European painting. During his reign he came into direct contact with the English Crown and was sent gifts of oil paintings, which included portraits of the King and Queen. He encouraged his royal atelier to take up the single point perspective favoured by European artists, unlike the flattened multi-layered style used in traditional miniatures. He particularly encouraged paintings depicting events of his own life, individual portraits, and studies of birds, flowers and animals. The ''
Tuzk-e-Jahangiri'' (or ''Jahangirnama''), written during his lifetime, which is an autobiographical account of Jahangir's reign, has several paintings, including some unusual subjects such as the union of a saint with a tigress, and fights between spiders. Mughal paintings made during Jahangir's reign continued the trend of Naturalism and were influenced by the resurgence of Persian styles and subjects over more traditional Hindu.
Shah Jahan (1628–1659)
During the reign of
Shah Jahan
Shihab-ud-Din Muhammad Khurram (5 January 1592 – 22 January 1666), better known by his regnal name Shah Jahan I (; ), was the fifth emperor of the Mughal Empire, reigning from January 1628 until July 1658. Under his emperorship, the Mugha ...
(1628–58), Mughal paintings continued to develop, but court paintings became more rigid and formal. The illustrations from the "Padshanama" (chronicle of the King of the world), one of the finest Islamic manuscripts from the Royal Collection, at Windsor, were painted during the reign of Shah Jahan. Written in Persian on paper that is flecked with gold, has exquisitely rendered paintings. The "Padshahnama" has portraits of the courtiers and servants of the King painted with great detail and individuality. In keeping with the strict formality at court, however the portraits of the King and important nobles was rendered in strict profile, whereas servants and common people, depicted with individual features have been portrayed in the three-quarter view or the frontal view.
Themes including musical parties; lovers, sometimes in intimate positions, on terraces and gardens; and ascetics gathered around a fire, abound in the Mughal paintings of this period. Even though this period was titled the most prosperous, artists during this time were expected to adhere to representing life in court as organized and unified. For this reason, most art created under his rule focused mainly on the emperor and aided in establishing his authority. The purpose of this art was to leave behind an image of what the Mughal's believed to be the ideal ruler and state.
Later paintings
Aurangzeb
Muhi al-Din Muhammad (; – 3 March 1707), commonly known as ( fa, , lit=Ornament of the Throne) and by his regnal title Alamgir ( fa, , translit=ʿĀlamgīr, lit=Conqueror of the World), was the sixth emperor of the Mughal Empire, ruling ...
(1658–1707) was never an enthusiastic patron of painting, largely for religious reasons , and took a turn away from the pomp and ceremonial of the court around 1668, after which he probably commissioned no more paintings. After 1681 he moved to the
Deccan to pursue his slow conquest of the
Deccan Sultanates
The Deccan sultanates were five Islamic late-medieval Indian kingdoms—on the Deccan Plateau between the Krishna River and the Vindhya Range—that were ruled by Muslim dynasties: namely Ahmadnagar, Berar, Bidar, Bijapur, and Golconda. Th ...
, never returning to live in the north.
Mughal paintings continued to survive, but the decline had set in. Some sources however note that a few of the best Mughal paintings were made for Aurangzeb, speculating that they believed that he was about to close the workshops and thus exceeded themselves in his behalf. There was a brief revival during the reign of
Muhammad Shah 'Rangeela' (1719–48), but by the time of
Shah Alam II (1759–1806), the art of Mughal painting had lost its glory. By that time, other schools of Indian painting had developed, including, in the royal courts of the Rajput kingdoms of
Rajputana
Rājputana, meaning "Land of the Rajputs", was a region in the Indian subcontinent that included mainly the present-day Indian state of Rajasthan, as well as parts of Madhya Pradesh and Gujarat, and some adjoining areas of Sindh in modern-day ...
,
Rajput painting and in the cities ruled by the
British East India Company, the
Company style
Company style, also known as Company painting or Patna painting (Hindi: ''kampani kalam'') is a term for a hybrid Indo-European style of paintings made in India by Indian artists, many of whom worked for European patrons in the East India Company ...
under Western influence. Late Mughal style often shows increased use of
perspective and recession under Western influence.
Many museums have collections, with that of the
Victoria and Albert Museum in London especially large.
Artists
The Persian master artists
Abd al-Samad and
Mir Sayyid Ali, who had accompanied
Humayun to India in the 16th century, were in charge of the imperial atelier during the formative stages of Mughal painting. Many artists worked on large commissions, the majority of them apparently Hindu, to judge by the names recorded. Mughal painting generally involved a group of artists, one (generally the most senior) to decide and outline the composition, the second to actually paint, and perhaps a third who specialized in portraiture, executing individual faces.
This was especially the case with the large historical book projects that dominated production during Akbar's reign, the ''
Tutinama
Tutinama (), literal meaning "Tales of a Parrot", is a 14th-century series of 52 stories in Persian. The work remains well-known largely because of a number of lavishly illustrated manuscripts, especially a version containing 250 miniature paintin ...
'', ''
Baburnama
The ''Bāburnāma'' ( chg, ; literally: ''"History of Babur"'' or ''"Letters of Babur"''; alternatively known as ''Tuzk-e Babri'') is the memoirs of Ẓahīr-ud-Dīn Muhammad Bābur (1483–1530), founder of the Mughal Empire and a great-great- ...
'', ''
Hamzanama'', ''
Razmnama'', and ''
Akbarnama''. For manuscripts of Persian poetry there was a different way of working, with the best masters apparently expected to produce exquisitely finished miniatures all or largely their own work. An influence on the evolution of style during Akbar's reign was
Kesu Das Kesu may refer to:
Places
*Kesu, Lääne County, village in Martna Parish, Lääne County, Estonia
*Kesu, Rapla County, village in Vigala Parish, Rapla County, Estonia
Other uses
* Kesu (film), ''Kesu'' (film), an Indian children's film releas ...
, who understood and developed "European techniques of rendering space and volume".
Conveniently for modern scholars, Akbar liked to see the names of the artists written below each miniature. Analysis of manuscripts shows that individual miniatures were assigned to many painters. For example, the
incomplete ''Razmnama'' in the
British Library contains 24 miniatures, with 21 different names, though this may be an especially large number.
Other important painters under Akbar and Jahangir were:
*
Farrukh Beg (c. 1545– c. 1615), another Persian import, in India from 1585–1590, perhaps then in
Bijapur
Bijapur, officially known as Vijayapura, is the district headquarters of Bijapur district of the Karnataka state of India. It is also the headquarters for Bijapur Taluk. Bijapur city is well known for its historical monuments of architectural ...
, returning north from around 1605 to his death.
*
Daswanth, a Hindu, d. 1584, who worked especially on Akbar's ''
Razmnama'', the ''
Mahabharata'' in Persian
*
Basawan
Basāwan, or Basāvan (flourished 1580–1600), was an Indian miniature painter in the Mughal style. He was known by his contemporaries as a skilled colorist and keen observer of human nature, and for his use of portraiture in the illustrations ...
a Hindu active c. 1580–1600, whose son
Manohar Das was active c. 1582–1624
*
Govardhan, active c. 1596 to 1640, another Hindu, especially good at portraits. His father Bhavani Das,
had been a painter in the imperial workshop.
*
Ustad Mansur (flourished 1590–1624) a specialist in animals and plants
*
Abu al-Hasan (1589 – c. 1630)
*
Bichitr
*
Bishandas
Bishandas was a 17th-century Mughal painter at the court of the Mughal emperor Jahangir (1569–1627), specializing in portraits. Jahangir praised him as "unrivalled in the art of portraiture". Though little is known of Bishandas’ life, his ...
, a Hindu specialist in portraits
*
Mushfiq an early example of an artist who seems never to have worked in the imperial atelier, but for other clients.
*
Miskin
Others: Nanha, Daulat, Payag, Abd al-Rahim, Amal-e Hashim, Keshavdas, and Mah Muhammad.
The sub-imperial school of Mughal painting included artists such as
Mushfiq, Kamal, and Fazl. During the first half of the 18th century, many Mughal-trained artists left the imperial workshop to work at Rajput courts. These include artists such as Bhawanidas and his son
Dalchand
Dalchand was a Hindu Rajput painter who worked at the Jodphur court in Rajasthan in the first quarter of the 18th century. He painted several portraits and court scenes of his patron, Maharaja Abhai Singh, before moving to Kishangarh
Kis ...
.
Mughal style today
Mughal-style miniature paintings are still being created today by a small number of artists in Lahore concentrated mainly in the National College of Arts. Although many of these miniatures are skillful copies of the originals, some artists have produced contemporary works using classic methods with, at times, remarkable artistic effect.
The skills needed to produce these modern versions of Mughal miniatures are still passed on from generation to generation, although many artisans also employ dozens of workers, often painting under trying working conditions, to produce works sold under the signature of their modern masters.
Gallery
File:Painting of Akbar Mughal Period, National Museum, New Delhi.jpg, Portrait of Akbar
File:A noble lady, Mughal dynasty, India. 17th century.jpg, A noble lady, Mughal dynasty, India. 17th century. Color and gold on paper
Freer Gallery of Art F1907.219
File:Nurjahan.jpg, Nur Jahan
File:Shah Jahan on a Terrace Holding a Pendant Set with His Portrait.jpg, Shah Jahan
Shihab-ud-Din Muhammad Khurram (5 January 1592 – 22 January 1666), better known by his regnal name Shah Jahan I (; ), was the fifth emperor of the Mughal Empire, reigning from January 1628 until July 1658. Under his emperorship, the Mugha ...
on a terrace holding a pendant set with his portrait
File:Attributed to Hiranand - Illustration from a Dictionary (unidentified)- Da'ud Receives a Robe of Honor from Mun'im Khan - Google Art Project.jpg, Daud Khan Karrani receives a Kaftan of honor from Munim Khan
File:1561-The Victory of Ali Quli Khan on the river Gomti-Akbarnama.jpg, Victory of Ali Quli Khan on the river Gomti-Akbarnama, 1561
File:Mir Sayyid Ali - Portrait of a Young Indian Scholar.jpg, Mir Sayyid Ali's depiction of a young scholar in the Mughal Empire, reading and writing a commentary on the Quran, 1559.
File:Battle scene from the 1570 Hamzanama of Akbar.jpg, Battle scene from the '' Hamzanama of Akbar'', 1570
File:1561-The Submission of the rebel brothers Ali Quli and Bahadur Khan-Akbarnama.jpg, The Submission of the rebel brothers Ali Quli and Bahadur Khan. '' Akbarnama'', 1590–95
File:1561-Akbar riding the elephant Hawa'I pursuing another elephant across a collapsing bridge of boats (right).jpg, Akbar riding the elephant Hawa'I pursuing another elephant across a collapsing bridge of boats (right), 1561
File:1562-Pir Muhammad Drowns While Crossing the Narbada-Akbarnama.jpg, Pir Muhammad Drowns While Crossing the Narbada-Akbarnama, 1562
File:1573-Akbar receiving his sons at Fathpur-Akbarnama.jpg, Akbar receiving his sons at Fatehpur Sikri. '' Akbarnama'', 1573
File:Europeans Embracing LACMA M.83.105.20 (1 of 3).jpg, Europeans embracing, Lahore, c. 1590
File:"Alexander is Lowered Into the Sea".jpg, ''Alexander is Lowered into the Sea'', from a Khamsa (Quintet) of Amir Khusrau Dihlavi c. 1597–98, attributed to Mukanda.
File:The Death of Inayat Khan (Bod MS. Ouseley Add. 171b f. 4r).jpg, Balchand, ''The Dying Inayat Khan'', c. 1618, Bodleian Library
The Bodleian Library () is the main research library of the University of Oxford, and is one of the oldest libraries in Europe. It derives its name from its founder, Sir Thomas Bodley. With over 13 million printed items, it is the second- ...
, Oxford
File:Mughal Prince Visits a Holy Man.jpg, Mughal Prince visits a Holy Man
File:Prince and Ladies in a Garden, mid-18th century; Mughal.jpg, A Mughal prince and ladies in a garden, 18th century
File:Gujjari Ragini.jpg, A young woman playing a Veena to a parakeet, a symbol of her absent lover. 18th-century painting in the provincial Mughal style of Bengal
File:A woman holding a Veena, Mughal, India. 18 century.jpg, Female performer with a tanpura, 18th century. Color and gold on paper
Freer Gallery of Art F1907.195
File:Ascetic Seated on Leopard's Skin, Provincial Mughal school, India, Opaque watercolor on paper, Late 18th century.tiff, Ascetic Seated on Leopard's Skin, late 18th century
File:Mughal Ganjiya Playing Cards, Early 19th century, courtesy the Wovensouls collection.jpg, Mughal Ganjifa playing cards, early 19th century, with miniature paintings – courtesy of the Wovensouls collection
File:Box with Scenes of an Emperor Receiving Gifts.jpg, The figural decoration of this example shows a strong relationship to paintings of the 17th century.
See also
*
Arabic miniature
Arabic miniatures (Arabic: ٱلْمُنَمْنَمَات ٱلْعَرَبِيَّة, ''Al-Munamnamāt al-ʿArabīyyah'') are small paintings on paper, usually book or manuscript illustrations but also sometimes separate artworks that occupy entir ...
*
Indian painting
*
Madhubani painting
*
Ottoman miniature
*
Rajput painting
*
Tanjore painting
*
Western painting
*
Persian miniature
*
Islamic miniature
Islamic miniatures are small paintings on paper, usually book or manuscript illustrations but also sometimes separate artworks. The earliest examples date from around 1000 AD, with a flourishing of the artform from around 1200 AD. The field is div ...
Notes
References
*
Beach, Milo Cleveland, ''Early Mughal painting'', Harvard University Press, 1987, ,
google books*Crill, Rosemary, and Jariwala, Kapil. ''The Indian Portrait, 1560–1860'',
National Portrait Gallery, London
The National Portrait Gallery (NPG) is an art gallery in London housing a collection of portraits of historically important and famous British people. It was arguably the first national public gallery dedicated to portraits in the world when it ...
, 2010,
*Eastman, Alvan C. "Mughal painting." College Art Association . 3.2 (1993): 36. Web. 30 Sep. 2013.
*"Grove",
Oxford Art Online, "Indian sub., §VI, 4(i): Mughal ptg styles, 16th–19th centuries", restricted access.
*Harle, J.C., ''The Art and Architecture of the Indian Subcontinent'', 2nd edn. 1994, Yale University Press Pelican History of Art,
*Kossak, Steven. (1997)
''Indian court painting, 16th-19th century.''Metropolitan Museum of Art.
*Losty, J. P. Roy, Malini (eds), ''Mughal India: Art, Culture and Empire'', 2013, British Library, , 9780712358705
*"Mughal Painting." Encyclopædia Britannica. Encyclopædia Britannica Academic Online Edition. Encyclopædia Britannica Inc., 2013.Web. 30 Sep 2013.
*Titley, Norah M., ''Persian Miniature Painting, and its Influence on the Art of Turkey and India'', 1983, University of Texas Press, 0292764847
* Sarafan, Greg, "Artistic Stylistic Transmission in the Royal Mughal Atelier", Sensible Reason, LLC, 2007
SensibleReason.com
Further reading
*Painting for the Mughal Emperor (The Art of the Book 1560-1660) by ''Susan Stronge'' ()
Fiction in Mughal Miniature Paintingby Prof. P. C. Jain and Dr. Daljeet
*Painting the Mughal Experience by ''Som Prakash Verma'', 2005 ()
*Chitra, Die Tradition der Miniaturmalerei in Rajasthan by K.D. Christof & Renate Haass, 1999 ()
*
*
Artistic Stylistic Transmission in the Royal Mughal Atelierby Greg Sarafan, Esq., 2007
External links
''Indian Court Painting, 16th-19th Century''from the Metropolitan Museum of Art
Collection: Art of the Mughal Empirefrom the
University of Michigan Museum of Art
{{Authority control
Schools of Indian painting
Indian painting
Islamic illuminated manuscripts
Mughal Empire
Pakistani painting
Mughal art
Islamic arts of the book
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