Mughal Painting (Akbar and Jahangir)

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XVI, 2

MUSEUM OF FINE ARTS BULLETIN

Malik ' Ambar

School of Jahangir

Mughal Painting

(A^bar and Jahangir)

MUGHAL* PAINTING owes its existence
entirely to the patronage of the " Great
Moguls " who held their court at Delhi and Agra.
The dates of these emperors are as follows :
Akbar, 1556-1605; Jahangir, 1605-1628;
Shah Jahan, 1628-1658; Aurangzib, 1658-
1707; BahadurShah, 1707 : 17I2; Muhammad
Shah, I 7 1 9- 1 748. The painting covers a period
of about a hundred and fifty years, approximately from
\ 580-1 730 A. D., attaining its greatest perfection
about I 620. It is fairly easy to classify the individual
paintings as belonging to the " school " of one or
other of these emperors, though naturally there are
numerous individual painters whose work covers
more than one reign. The names of many of the
painters are known. The Museum possesses many
fine examples from the Goloubew Collection, sup-
plemented by others, chiefly from the Ross Col-
lection and the Coomaraswamy Collection, also
presented by Dr. Denman W. Ross.

Mughal painting forms a dramatic episode in
the history of Indian art, remote, it is true, from
the expression of Hindu thought, and yet distinc-
tively Indian. Its aims and standpoint are secular
and realistic : it is interested in passing events, and
most typically in the exact delineation of individual

•Popular spelling, "Mogul."

character in the portraiture of men and animals.
It is dramatic rather than static, aristocratic more
than universal, and academic rather than vocational.
It is full of curiosity and observation and ready to
assimilate. Indirectly through European influence
it is interested in modelling and chiaroscuro. The
names of the painters afford material for attribution
and discussion. In all these respects it is distin-
guished from Rajput painting, the traditional Hindu
art of Rajputana and the Panjab Himalayas, which
is an art of ideas and of pure emotion, religious and
popular. Mughal painting is much more nearly
related in its aims to European Renaissance art than
to Asiatic art as a whole, or even to the pre- Renais-
sance art of Europe, and it is easy to see that this is
why it has attracted until lately the almost exclusive
attention of European collectors. It is very easy
to understand and admire.

Mughal painting has been generally described
as " Indo-Persian," or even in many cases as
Persian. It possesses, however, its own cycle of
development and decline, and exhibits an individu-
ality which precludes us from treating it as a mere
appendage to any other art. It attains, moreover,
its greatest virility at a time when Persian art is
already effeminate and ingenious. It should be ob-
served, too, that a majority — about three-fourths —
of Mughal painters are Hindus, as their means
indicate, and even of those who were Musalmans
by no means all were foreigners. It is, how-
ever, frankly an eclectic art, in which the principal

Falcon

Ustad Mansur, School of Jahangir

MUSEUM OF FINE ARTS BULLETIN

XVI, 3

Scene from the Mahabharata

School of Akbar

XVI. 4

MUSEUM OF FINE ARTS BULLETIN

Jahangir

About 1615-1620

elements are indigenous Indian, Persian, and Euro-
pean, and indirectly Chinese, united by the common
character of Indian Mughal psychology. It differs
most obviously from Persian in that the latter is
essentially an art of book illustration (though this is
also largely true of Mughal painting under Akbar),
while the former produces typically portfolio paintings,
which are definitely pictures rather than illuminations,
and though associated with calligraphy (which the
Indian Mughals continued to rank with painting as
a fine art), remain organically independent. The
traditional themes of Persian art are likewise more
or less neglected in favor of contemporary events.
In this connection it is instructive to remark the
attitude of Prince Daniyal, Akbar's son, who is
represented in the Suz-u-Gudaz of Nau'i as very

tired of the " old wearisome tales of Laila and
Majnun, the moth and the nightingale," and as
saying to the court poet (whom he commissioned
to relate the tragic story of a Hindu girl who
became a " suttee *'), " If we read at all, let it be
what we have seen and heard ourselves.'*

To a certain extent also we find purely Hindu
themes adopted by Mughal painters, especially in
the later period ; but such themes are treated no
longer from the standpoint of ideas, but as material
for picturesque and romantic representation. There
may be exceptions to this, however, in certain
volumes illustrated for Akbar, whose interest in
Hindu thought was real and serious.

The development of Mughal painting is really
due to Akbar and Jahangir. The former pos-
sessed a library of 24 000 MSS., many of which
were illustrated, and his biographer, Abu-1-Fazl,
records him as saying (with special reference to
the orthodox Musalman prejudice against the
representation of living things) :

" There are many that hate painting, but such
men I dislike. It appears to me as if a painter had
quite peculiar means of recognizing God, for a
painter, in sketching anything that has life, and in
devising the limbs one after another, must come to
feel that he cannot bestow a soul upon his work,
and is thus forced to thank God, the giver of life,
and will thus increase his wisdom.'*

Abu-1-Fazl adds that Akbar had taken the
greatest interest in painting from his earliest youth,
regarding it both as a means of study and an
amusement. " The works of all painters," he says

*

c

■ *

>^,. _L

f

r/\

The Dying Man

School of Jahangir

MUSEUM OF FINE ARTS BULLETIN

XVI, 5

Shah 'Abbas and Khan 'Alam

Bishndas, School of Jahangir

XVI, 6

MUSEUM OF FINE ARTS BULLETIN

— employed, that is, in the court ateliers — " are
weekly laid before His Majesty by the daroghas
and clerks : he then confers rewards according to
excellence of workmanship, or increases the monthly
salaries. Much progress was made in the com-
modities required by painters. . . . His Majesty
himself sat for his likeness and also ordered the
likenesses to be taken of all the grandees of the
realm.** Abu-1-Fazl gives a list of painters cel-
ebrated at Akbar*s court, the most famous being
Mir Sayyid Ali of Tabriz, Khwaja Abdu-s-
Samad, Daswanth, and Basawan. Ustad Mansur
was also at work in the time of Akbar.

The Museum possesses several good examples
of the Akbar period. Amongst the most important
of these are two pictures of the Birth of a Prince,*
zenana interiors at Fathpur Sikri (Akbarabad),
crowded with figures of women and exquisite in
color and detail ; a splendid '* portrait '* of Maulvi
Rumi ; and a fine page from a Shah Nama, show-
ing Bahram killing two lions. Besides these there
are three complete leaves of a Hindi MS. — the
Rasif^apriya of Kesava Das — as well as eighteen
detached pictures from the same MS., which are
in a characteristic Mughal style of about 1 600
A. D., notwithstanding their purely Hindu subject-
matter ; and this also applies to a fine illustration
of an episode from the Mahabharata, where
Krishna is shown acting as mediator between the
Kauravas and Pandavas. There are also some
interesting drawings of camels and some pictures
based on or copied from European originals (paint-
ings or engravings), of which a good many seem
to have reached the libraries of the Mughal
emperors. In the best works of this period the
influence of the school of Bihzad is still conspicu-
ous,! while in many others the level of accom-
plishment is not remarkable ; we must regard the
patronage of Akbar as making possible rather than
as actually creating what is best in characteristically
Indian Mughal art, and this is especially true of the
portraiture.

It is under Jahangir that Mughal painting attains
its greatest perfection. Jahangir constantly refers
to the court painters in his Memoirs,t and mentions
the valuable presents and the honors which he
bestowed upon them. The Museum collection is
rich in works of this period, and two of these
pictures are very possibly amongst those that are
specifically mentioned by Jahangir himself.

Two of Jahangir's painters are specially praised.
One of these, Abu-1-Hasan, who received the
title of Nadiru-z-Zaman, according to Jahangir,
had " no rival or equal,** and he was the recipient
of endless favors. His father, Aqa Riza*i of Herat,
had entered Jahangir's service while the latter was
still a prince, but the son was far better than the
father. It is very possible that this Abu-1-Hasan,

*The princes Salitn and Murad were bom at Fathpur Sikri in 1569
and 1570.

tThe term I ndo- Persian, if used at all, should be restricted to works
of the school of Akbar.

+ Tuzuk-i-Jahangiri, translated by Rogers and Beveridge.

who was a " khanazad ** of Jahangir*s court, was
one of the two or more khanazads who, according
to what remains of the signature, collaborated in
producing the splendid picture, the Darbar of
Akbar, in the Museum collection,* a work of
equal historical arid artistic importance. In this
picture there are sixty-seven figures, all portraits
(amongst others, Akbar, Jahangir, — as Prince Salim,
— Jahangir's grandsons, and Mahabat Khan) ; in
many cases the names of the subjects are inscribed,
and these can be identified as prominent officials
and noblemen of Jahangir's court. A picture of
this kind is based on original sketches, — often by
many different hands, — and the final work itself
may be, as in this case, a product of collaboration.
In this connection Jahangir makes the following
claim to connoisseurship : " If there be a picture
containing many portraits, and each face be the
work of a different master, I can discover which
face is the work of each of them.*' It should be
noted that the picture, although ostensibly historical,
and actually reliable as far as the individual por-
traits are concerned, contains many anachronisms,
of which the most evident appear in the fact that
Jahangir's grandsons were not born until at least
ten years after Akbar's death, and that the courtiers
are Jahangir's men rather than Akbar's. Many
other Mughal paintings exhibit similar composite
groupings.

•Handbook, page 226, wrongly described as Jahangir, as also in
many of the published accounts ; correctly, however, by Schultz, Die
persische-islamische Miniahtrenmalerei t PI. 193.

Raja Man Singh

School of Jahangir

MUSEUM OF FINE ARTS BULLETIN

XVI, 7

Attributed to Ustad Mansur, School of Jahangir

Closely related to this picture is an uncolored
drawing, perhaps by Raja Manohar Singh, w hich
represents apparently the reconciliation of Akbar
with Prince Salim (afterwards Jahangir) and the
investiture of the prince with the sword of
Humayun.*

It seems that about 1 620 Jahangir must have
had painted for himself a series of court scenes in
which he had been a prominent figure. In his
Memoirs he mentions one such by Abu-1-Hasan,
representing his accession, and this was done as a
frontispiece to a MS. of the Jahangir-Nama.

The second of the two painters whom Jahangir
names as " having no third,** is Ustad Mansur,
who received the title of Nadiru-1-Asr, and in the
art of drawing " was unique in his generation.**
Mansur is well known to modern students as a
wonderful painter of animals. The Museum
possesses a signed picture of a falcon, which is
possibly the very one referred to by Jahangir in
the Memoirs for the fourteenth year of his reign
( 1 6 1 9 A. D.) : " What can I write of the beauty
and color of this falcon ? ** he says. " There were
many beautiful black markings on each wing and
back and sides. As it was something out of the
common, I ordered Ustad Mansur, who has the
title of Nadiru-1-Asr (wonder of the age), to paint
and preserve its likeness.** Paintings of a zebra
and a ram in the Museum collection, although
unsigned, are probably by the same artist.

A third painter praised by Jahangir has the
Hindu name of Bishndas (Vishnu Das), and a
signed work in the Museum collection, — representing
Shah 'Abbas I of Persia receiving from Khan Alam,
Jahangir's ambassador, a crystal cup, which was
sent to him with other gifts in 1617, — is probably

*lt is like a drawing by Raja Manohar Singh in the India Office,
London ( reproduced but wrongly dated in my Indian c Dra t wings, /).
the inscription on w^ich identifies the mis-en-sc^e as the Divan-i-Khas
at Akbarabad. This is not, however, the building with the throne
supported by a circular single capital, which is traditionally called the
Divan-i-Khas.

one of the pictures referred to in the " Memoirs,**
as follows :

" At the time when I sent Khan 'Alam to Persia
I had sent with him a painter of the name of
Bishndas, who was unequalled in his age for
taking likenesses, to take the portraits of the Shah
and the chief men of his State, and bring them.
He had drawn the likenesses of most of them, and
especially that of my brother the Shah, exceedingly
well.**

In our picture, which is signed by Bishndas,
Khan Alam is attended by a servant bearing his
hukk a > and in this connection it is interesting to
note that Jahangir mentions that his ambassador
was "without control in continual smoking of
tobacco,** and notwithstanding that he himself and
also the Shah of Persia had endeavored to suppress
tobacco smoking on account of the " mischief arising
from it,** Khan 'Alam received from the Shah a
special dispensation permitting him to smoke as
much as he liked.

Of other paintings of the Jahangir period in the
Museum collection, the magnificent portrait of Malik
'Ambar, the Abyssinian leader of the Marathas
in many successful conflicts with Jahangir *s forces,
is especially noteworthy. This portrait has immense
vitality, and reveals a man of forceful and deter-
mined character, if we may judge by the forward
thrust of the whole figure, the curious hooked nose,
and the pursed-up lips. In very much the same
style are the portraits of a very stout nobleman
leaning on a copper staff — almost certainly Raja
Man Singh of Jaipur, a prominent figure at the
Courts of Akbar and Jahangir, and a close friend of
the former, though called by Jahangir " one of the
old wolves and hypocrites of this State,** — and the
portrait of a falconer, both in the Museum col-
lection. Strongly contrasted with these two is a
very sensitive and refined uncolored drawing of a
Seated Maulvi, very grand and dignified in manner,

XVI. 8

MUSEUM OF FINE ARTS BULLETIN

notwithstanding the scale is minute and the detail
almost incredibly delicate. There is also an excel-
lent small Head of Jahangir. Beside these there is
the very important drawing of a Dying Man, the
original sketch for a picture now in the Bodleian,
Oxford, a work truly remarkable for its relentless
realism and passionate intensity, and perhaps the
finest Mughal painting extant.*

In the time of Shah Jahan Mughal painting is
already overripe ; it begins to lose its grip on
actuality and becomes an art of flattery, luxurious
and effeminate, rather than vigorous and splendid.
Under Aurangzib it has become already con-
ventional in the sense that it uses long accepted
and even hackneyed formulae, with less reliance on
individual research and direct vision. Neverthe-
less there are individual works even from the end
of the seventeenth century and beginning of the
eighteenth which are admirable productions, and
almost equal to many of the earlier creations.
One of the best of these in the Museum col-
lection is an equestrian portrait of Nawab Shuja"
al-Mulk Husam al-Daulah 'Ali Virdi Khan Baha-
dur Mahabat Jang, governor of Bengal, Bihar,
and Orissa, who died A. D. I 756. But Mughal
art is really finished by the middle of the
eighteenth century, and all that remains of it
now is the Delhi trade in ivory miniatures, the
productions of which, for the student of art, are
entirely negligible, though they satisfy the some-
what romantic taste of the tourist. A. K. C.

Print Collector's Quarterly

Discontinuance for the Duration of the War

ON January 2 the following notice was sent to
all the subscribers to the Print Collector's
Quarterly :

*'In view of the claims of the times upon insti-
tutions and individuals alike, the Museum has
reluctantly decided to suspend the publication of
the Quarterly for the duration of the war. The
December number just issued will be followed by
a full index of the entire series. Notice regarding
subscriptions will in due course be given by the
publishers, Houghton Mifflin Company.

" The Museum acknowledges with satisfaction
the support which the Quarterly has received
among lovers of the art of engraving in this country
and abroad, and hopes at a happier moment to
renew the service which the Quarterly has rendered
for the past seven years."

This announcement needs no comment other
than that afforded by the events of every day.
Many friends in Europe and America have already
expressed their regret at the suspension of the
Quarterly and their appreciation of its value to
students of the art of engraving. The field occupied
by the Quarterly has been represented by no other
publication in English, and will demand cultivation
again upon the return of peace. In this labor the
Museum hopes to perform its due share.

* Coomaraswamy, Arts and Crafts of India and Ceylnn, Fig. 169.

Museum Ideals*

AT a moment whose overshadowing duty is to
destroy, a purely constructive book like the
volume just issued by the Museum seems a birth out
of due time. How has the writer been able to pur-
sue his placid themes and how can readers of the
present be expected to follow him ? In 1 9 1 4 the
book was nearly completed, and it has now been
brought to an end, not without difficulty, to take
its place upon library shelves until, and if, a peace
ensues that will give relief from wars and rumors of
them.

Studies purposely undertaken with deliberation
in order to touch upon the wider bearings of a
narrow field will hardly appeal to any single reader
from cover to cover. The inquiries with which the
book begins and on which it is based {The Nature
and Place of Fine Art, Popular Education in Fine
Art) would in a time of quiet have interest lor most
thoughtful people. As man is a half being com-
pleted by woman, so the artist is a half being com-
pleted by the true beholder, the critic in the modern
French sense, he who sifts out (icplvta, to separate ;
KpiTTic6s, one able to discern) the intention of a work
of art from our blunders over it and blindnesses to
it. An inference from this view assigns museums
of art primarily to a new category among institu-
tions of the humanities — that of foundations for
culture instead of foundations for education (The
Ideal of Culture). A further corollary places
historical and technical students of art among
dilettanti, and the mass of those who " know what
they like " among connoisseurs in the making.
Discussions occupying most of the book relate to
museum growth, to a new type of museum archi-
tecture based on the clerestory instead of the
customary skylights and windows (The Ideals of
Diagonal Lighting and Radial Expansion), to
new devices for gallery installation and instruction
(The Ideals of Restful Inspection, of Official
Companionship and the Interpretative Catalogue),
to the expansion of museum activities, and to a possi-
ble future metamorphosis of museums. In these
pages there is meat only for the comparatively
small number of persons who are responsible for
existing museums or engaged in founding new
ones. The final section, th at on government, contains
a suggestion for current politics drawn from the
field of institutional management ( The Ideal of
Composite Boards). All corporate life, govern-
mental as well as social, demands a return to
the exact text of the charter of our national
liberty. In declaring men created equal, Jefferson
denied all claims to distinction derived from a life
antedating ours. No rights are divine : all are
human. The century after Jefferson misapplied to
this world the equality he had asserted beyond it.
His doctrine — that there are no valid distinctions

*" Museum Ideals of Purpose and Method." Benjamin Ives Gilman.
Printed by order of the Trustees of the Museum at the Riverside Press,
Cambridge, 1918. Octavo, pages XXII, 434, with 99 illustrations.
Price, $3 00 postpaid. On sale at the Museum and by Houghton Mifflin
Company, 4 Park Street, Boston.