Mughal Miniatures - The Paintings of Elegance
Author: NAVAL LANGAThe Mughal era of miniature paintings owns a noteworthy page in the history of art of paintings in India. The Mughals - descendants of Timur and Genghiz Khan with strong cultural ties to the Persian world - became rules of north India in 1526 and became the most important artistically active Muslim dynasty on the subcontinent.
The miniature style of paintings practiced during this period was clearly influenced by the Persian style of paintings. The Persian painters of miniature style used upright format and general setting with emphasis on flat aerial perspective. The Mughal era artists, especially in the time of King Akbar (1556-1605), maintained that qualities of the Persian style in their work. But they added their vision and took some freedom. They applied naturalism and the tried the depiction of the detailed observation of the world in immediate surround. Mughal and Rajput Paintings make a major contribution to the study of north Indian painting. Indian Miniature Paintings of sixteenth century, mainly from the courts of Mughal and Rajput Kings, were characterized by their typical form and look. These miniatures contained large areas of contrasting colours that the artists used quite symbolically.
These paintings represented the images on flat plane that result in strong two-dimensional design. In many paintings, separate scenes were painted in several sectors of the same work. But the proportions of these sectors risked making the whole painting to look unrealistic. Burt the main strength was their strong linear rhythm. It made the miniatures creating the effect of great energy. Some of the miniatures contain scenes where in the prince, or a king, is sitting with his lover woman. She may be his wife or one of the wives, as the Mughal and Rajaput Kings kept several wives. But the simple scene of two lovers sitting side by side illustrates much more than what we see at the first instance.
The company is decorated by seemingly the atmosphere conducive of love: Good arrangement of food and wine accompanied by two young women musicians. The artists have done much labour in making the details of the miniature paintings picturesque. The colours used for depicting the transparency of the clothes are also indicating that the characters sitting in the scene belongs to a highly rich family. The silk clothes were in vogue in that piece of time. However such costly clothes were limited within the wealthy people of the time. The miniature artists of Mughal era focused their attention on the beauty.
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About the Author:I write short stories and articles about the paintings.
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