Rachael Seculer-Faber Material Culture Essay Graduate Diploma
1
A Mughal item from the Bodleian Librarys
Love & Devotion exhibit: The realism and
brilliant colour palette are distinctly Mughal,
as are the inner borders painted with
botanically accurate flowers set inside gilded
margins.* (MS. Douce Or. a. 1, fols. 45b-46a)
The Development of Mughal Miniature Painting and the Reign of the Emperor Akbar
The art of painting in India extends as far back as prehistoric times, and numerous cave
paintings and murals at temples and other famous sites bear testimony to a long history of
creative production. These mural paintings can be seen to have influenced a vast array of Indian
painting techniques on various supports including Thangka (scroll) paintings on silk, Tanjore &
Mysore paintings on gessoed cloth, Pichhwai paintings on cloth, Batiks, Kadatas (a long sheet of
cloth made from tamarind-seed powder, cured with charcoal paste), Kalamkari (textile) paintings,
paintings on wood, glass, leather, ivory and mica; and the enduringly popular format of
illustrated manuscript leaves & miniatures, which have been produced across most parts of
India, and from as far back as the 10
th
century (palm leaf), to the 12
th
century (paper) and
through to the present day. Moreover, at the height of the
miniature painting tradition, styles from Indian miniatures seem
to have exerted their influence back in the other direction, upon
the mural paintings of various regional schools of the period.
1
This essay will focus on the miniature paintings of the Mughal
School, in particular those of the Akbari period, which were
largely executed as manuscript illustrations or in the format of
albums, either directly on paper or on paper-backed cloth,
bound or unbound. Technical, contextual and stylistic aspects of
this painting tradition will be discussed, along with their relation
to other types of art production, both within and outwith India.
The Mughal era is perhaps the most interesting period in the
history of painting in India, as the (ethnically Turko-Mongol)
Mughal rulers seeing Persian culture as the height of
refinement brought Persian artists and artistic styles
to India, to create a merging of indigenous Indian
painting styles and new influences. Mughal
miniatures and illustrated manuscripts are, therefore,
an extremely useful tool for looking at the interplay
of Indias various different cultural and artistic
traditions across time.
In his work on the restoration of Indian miniature paintings, K.K. Gupta describes the
technique of Indian miniature painting as being a peculiar technique of execution...neither
proper watercolour nor gouache or tempera... somewhere between these or perhaps a blend of
these
2
. He explains that they are made up with a layered structure, the first part of which is the
wasli, or paperboard, support. The wasli consists of two or three sheets of paper pasted
together, and smoothed by burnishing after being sized in a solution of alum. In some cases, the
support instead consists of a single sheet of paper strengthened by added strips of paper at the
edges; if wasli is used, it may still be the case that the support is made by skillfully joining several
small pieces or, commonly, by preparing the borders and margins from separate pieces of
* http://www.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/whats-on/online/love-and-devotion/mughal-india
1
Bisht
2
Gupta
Rachael Seculer-Faber Material Culture Essay Graduate Diploma
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A late 5
th
Century Buddhist wall painting, the Mahajanaka
jataka, from Cave 1 at Ajanta
paper. Given that paper was possibly not produced in India until the late 13
th
/ early 14
th
century
AD
3
, and once introduced was nevertheless a secret known only to a few families of Kagzi
Muslims (the Hindu caste-system did not approve of the touching of rags), it can be surmised
that these measures were designed with the goal of maximising the use of an expensive,
sometimes imported (Iranian) material, by means of minimising wastage. After this support was
prepared, a preliminary outline was sketched on it, and this was covered with a thin white ground
of lead white, clay, or zinc white suspended in a plant gum, through which the outline would be
visible. The ground was burnished,
and then the outline and details drawn
in with a mixture of lampblack and
carmine prior to painting. It has been
observed
4
that pre-Mughal and early-
Mughal paintings used thin layers of
both ground and paint, as was
common among Persian artists, but
that over time Indian artists made the
technique their own by using thicker
layers of ground and paint, akin to
indigenous mural-painting methods,
as well as specifically Mughal-period
choices of materials (e.g. lead white as
the preferred ground). The make-up
of the paint a pigment within a
binding medium of babul gum, neem
gum or animal glue is also specifically Indian, and can be considered neither watercolour (it
uses a larger quantity of binding medium), tempera (it is not an emulsion) nor gouache (no
opacifier is added)
5
. Layers of paint were added one at a time and the painting burnished each
time. Finally, the finishing touch of gold and silver illumination was added using leaf in the
case of larger areas, or a suspension of powder, applied with a brush, in the case of finer details.
Stylistically, the development of the Mughal School of miniature painting began during
the reign of Humayun, who invited to his court two Persian artisans Mir Saiyid Ali and Abd
al-Samad from the Shahs manuscript studio at Tabriz. Their work, however, was still almost
purely Safavid in style
6
in the 1550s, and it was under the rule of Humayuns son Akbar that a
true Mughal style began to really take shape hints of which can be seen in the Tutinama
manuscript of Cleveland Museum of Art. Produced either towards the end of Humayuns reign
or at the beginning of his sons, the Cleveland Tutinama is the earliest known manuscript to
combine Safavid, Sultanate, Hindu and Jain styles, but also reflects how the painters were to
adapt their own highly idiosyncratic style to Akbars tastes
7
. The reign of Akbar is seen by many
3
There is much debate on the matter, with some scholars proposing much earlier dates, varying between the
2nd century BC and the 10th century AD
4
Bisht
5
Bisht; Gupta
6
Roy & Losty
7
Rogers
Rachael Seculer-Faber Material Culture Essay Graduate Diploma
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Tutinama, f.46a. Cleveland Museum of Art 62.279.
Hamzanama folio IS.1516-1883, Victoria & Albert Museum
as the height of manuscript production and decoration, and
perhaps of artistic production in general, in India. Akbar, who
himself enjoyed painting and saw it as a means of increasing
knowledge of god
8
, was a great patron of the arts. His
manuscript painting studio at Fatehpur Sikri numbered
around one hundred and fifty artists
9
, whose work he
inspected and rewarded on a weekly basis
10
.
Of the manuscripts illustrated by his imperial studio, known as the tasvir khana, the
project generally recognised as his first and greatest
11
is
the copying and illustration of the epic poem Hamzanama,
believed to have been produced in at least fourteen
volumes, all of an exceptionally large format (68x52cm).
Each volume is thought to have contained at least a
hundred illustrations though a total of fewer than a
hundred and fifty survive and the project is said to have
taken fifteen years to complete. Though certainly devised
as illustrated books rather than individual studies (as later
became popular, often placed in decorated albums, during
the reigns of Jahangir and Shah Jahan
12
), it is thought that
the volumes may have originally been unbound, and the
illustrated sheets painted on cloth with a stout paper
backing held up to accompany recitations of the epic.
The Hamzanamas style makes evident
the diverse origins of its artists, whom
Akbar had gathered from Iran and across the regions of India, both Muslims and Hindus. A
deeply spiritual man, during the 1570s Akbar instituted religious debates and discussions at his
court, inviting Sufi, Hindu, Jain, Zoroastrian and Jesuit (Portuguese Goan) scholars. He was
dedicated to creating a harmonious empire in which practitioners of various sects and beliefs,
both true and imperfect could live together in peace as we can learn from the memoirs of his
son Jahangir
13
and the makeup of the imperial court, from the ruling elite to the various ranks
8
Seyller
9
Bisht
10
Rogers
11
Rogers
12
The Nehru Gallery, Victoria & Albert Museum
13
Seyller
Rachael Seculer-Faber Material Culture Essay Graduate Diploma
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Capricorn, from the Eva and Konrad
Seitz Collection of Indian Miniatures
of artisans, reflects this intent, with Turko-Mongols, Persians, Indian-born Muslims and Hindus
holding equal status.
Thus, the Safavid Persian-style miniatures of the beginning of Akbars reign of vertical
format, in a flat, two-dimensional style (but with clearly legible spatial relationships), with
profuse floral and geometric decoration, with soft, shimmering background colours, with small
figures who are treated almost as decorative ornaments themselves, and an overall composition
in which no one element stands out more than others came to contain Hindu influences,
namely large, expressive figures; bold, unmodulated
background colours; a focus on a central scene and
all its drama as well as elements from the European
tradition, in the form of naturalistically drawn and
modelled figures, techniques of shading, a certain
sense of spatial depth, and elements of symbolism.
14
It is thought that medieval-period Jain manuscripts
and classical-period Buddhist paintings (such as the
Ajanta cave paintings, as pictured above) also played
their part in the development of the Mughal style, in
terms of the use of multiple perspective, the
modelling of features such as eyes and arms, and
other aspects.
15
It has been shown to be the case that
this mixed-influence style developed fairly quickly,
with the tasvir khanas original artists, trained in the
Persian, Sultanate, Jain and Rajput traditions,
immediately taking on elements of each others styles
(even the work of Humayuns two Persian masters
shows the adoption of native traits of Indian art)
16
rather than it being the case that this only
took place within the second generation of artists, trained by this eclectic mix of masters.
Moreover, Persian influence in Indian painting was not a new phenomenon with the Mughals
but had made its mark on western Indian painting since the 1450s.
17
This merging of influences
did not happen all at once, therefore, but before, during and after the time of Akbars first batch
of court artists. Over time, some of the elements present in early Mughal painting disappeared or
became less common, including the bold colour palette, the use of intricately patterned
backgrounds, and the sole focus on the central theme; this resulted in the creation of miniatures
such as the Capricorn painting shown above, which is strongly influenced by European
naturalism, symbolism and even architecture.
18
14
Seyller
15
Hajek
16
Verma
17
Verma
18
Seyller
Rachael Seculer-Faber Material Culture Essay Graduate Diploma
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Portrait of the Aged Akbar, Cleveland
Museum of Art (Andrew R. and Martha
Holden Jennings Fund 1971.78)
The man carried away by the Simurgh,
British Library Or.12208 f.195a. From a
1595-6 copy of the Khamsa of Nizami
Akbars religious policy was one of the central motivations to his patronage of miniature
painting, alongside the other, more established purposes of
Islamic book production, namely glorifying Allahs creation
and illustrating the wealth and sophistication of the patron.
Under Akbar, for the first time in the Islamic world,
painting was used systematically and effectively to propagate
the political goals of the ruler
19
. On one hand, this consisted
of the production of books containing Hindu epics
translated into Persian, which the Emperor hoped would
increase understanding and tolerance between his fellow
Turko-Mongols and Indias native Hindus.
20
On the other
hand, illustrated book production was a means of displaying
the glory and the legitimacy of Mughal rule, by producing
histories of the reigns of Akbar and of his ancestors.
21
Moreover, it was a means of promoting within the imperial
court the eclectic Din-i Ilahi form of worship that Akbar had
established, which focussed on light and the sun, and
on the Emperor as an embodiment of this divine light
supposedly passed down from his ancestor Queen
Alanquwa, who had been impregnated by a ray of
divine light. Thus, illustrations of the Virgin Mary were produced, in order to remind the viewer
of Alanquwa and her distinguished Timurid dynasty, which had reached its divine zenith in the
form of Akbar.
22
The halo, also adopted from Christian art, was another, even more direct way
of implying imperial divinity, as in the above image of Akbar from the reign of his grandson
Shah Jahan (1640-50).
But it seems that manuscript illustration was to Akbar not merely a form of imperial
propaganda but held for him a truly meaningful religious
significance. Traditional Persian paintings way of glorifying
god was to create a fantasy world which reflected gods glory
in its idyllic intricacy and peaceful atmosphere. Over time,
Akbari paintings way of glorifying god came to be the
depiction of the natural world in all its realism and naturalistic
beauty, along with (Christianinspired) elements of
symbolism
23
. As the book published to accompany the British
Librarys Mughal India: Art, Culture and Empire exhibition states,
The realization that his own artists, who for forty years had
been advancing towards the naturalistic representation of the
real world, had now reached the point where they could make
19
Seyller
20
Roy & Losty
21
Seyller
22
Seyller
23
Seyller
Rachael Seculer-Faber Material Culture Essay Graduate Diploma
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A page from the Akbarnama, the official
chronicle of Akbars reign. Victoria &
Albert Museum IS.2:24-1896
recognizable portraits of real people must have struck Akbar with amazing force.
24
Yet if we
take as fact a quote attributed to Akbar postulating that painting provides a means of
recognising God since the painter attempting to portray living beings must come to feel that
he cannot bestow originality upon his work, and is thus forced to think of God
25
, this
development of this skill among his artists must have done more than merely impress the
Emperor, but also alter dramatically his religious connection to miniature painting; it was now
recognised that it was the painters ability to accurately portray the natural world not his inability
to do so that caused the artist and viewer to contemplate Gods glories, and painting to
constitute a religious experience.
After the time of Akbar, Mughal miniature painting continued to evolve. His son
Jahangir involved himself deeply with the work of the imperial artists, visiting the atelier daily,
and the realistic naturalism and skill at portraiture developed during Akbars reign became the
central features of the later periods style. As previously
mentioned, a shift took place from the illustration of texts to the
production of individual images or albums thereof. Jahangirs
preferences also led to a paring down of the number of imperial
artists and their previously vast output, which enabled exacting
standards of artistry to be set for all the work produced by the
atelier, rather than a mixture of exceptional-quality, slow-paced
work and lower-quality, more immediate work, as had been the
case under Akbar. After Jahangir and Shah Jahan, Indian
miniature painting went through a period of neglect under the
orthodox Islamic Emperor Aurungzeb, and though it experienced
later bursts of productivity, such as the so called Company
school under the British Raj, producing artworks for British
members of the East India Company
26
, and the revival of
traditional Indian miniature techniques attempted in
recent years
27
, no period of Indian miniature painting
before or after has been as enormously productive,
varied, vibrant, dynamic, receptive of influences and
religiously and politically meaningful as under Akbar, whose reign can therefore be considered
the height of Indian miniature painting.
24
Roy & Losty
25
Verma
26
Nationalistic-seeming Indian scholars (e.g. A.S. Bisht) argue that Indian painting styles were largely
unaffected by western influence under the Raj, with only the reverse happening, yet other sources (e.g. The
Encyclopedia Britannica: http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/129596/Company-school) argue that
these works were in fact very much influenced by British tastes.
27
Although this has had some success, according to A.S. Bisht a side-effect of this revival in skill has been that
many well-painted copies almost indistinguishable from the historical originals have entered the market as
antiquities.
Rachael Seculer-Faber Material Culture Essay Graduate Diploma
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Works Cited
BISHT, A.S., 2008. Conservation of Indian miniatures and illustrated manuscripts. New Delhi: Om
Publications.
GUPTA, K.K., 2006. Restoration of Indian miniature paintings. New Delhi: Northern Book Centre :
National Museum Institute.
HJEK, L., FORMAN, W., & FORMAN, B. (1960). Indian miniatures of the Moghul school. London,
Spring Books.
LOSTY, J.P., ROY, M., 2012. Mughal India : art, culture and empire : manuscripts and paintings in
the British Library. London: British Library.
ROGERS, J.M., 2006. Mughal miniatures. London: British Museum Press.
SEYLLER, J.W. and SEITZ, K., 2010. Mughal and Deccani paintings : Eva and Konrad Seitz
collection of Indian miniatures. Zrich: Museum Rietberg.
VERMA, S.P., 2009. Interpreting Mughal painting : essays on art, society, and culture. New Delhi:
Oxford University Press.
Exhibitions visited
- The Nehru Gallery of South Asian Art (The Victoria and Albert Museum)
- Mughal India: Art, Culture and Empire (The British Library)
(& the Exhibition Blog at http://britishlibrary.typepad.co.uk/asian-and-african/2013/01/art-of-
painting.html)
- Love and Devotion: From Persia and Beyond (The Bodleian Library)
(& the Online Exhibition at http://www.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/whats-on/online/love-and-
devotion/mughal-india)
