File:Indian sculpture and painting, illustrated by typical masterpieces, with an explanation of their motives and ideals (1908) (14783762965).jpg

Identifier: cu31924016181798 (find matches)
Title: Indian sculpture and painting, illustrated by typical masterpieces, with an explanation of their motives and ideals
Year: 1908 (1900s)
Authors: Havell, E. B. (Ernest Binfield), 1861-1934
Subjects: Sculpture Painting
Publisher: London, J. Murray
Contributing Library: Cornell University Library
Digitizing Sponsor: MSN

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o have full effect as far as religious artwas concerned. Painting as a fine art became a diversion for theMogul emperors and their nobles r the artists ofthe courts of Akbar, Jahangir and Shah Jahan,both Hindu and Muhammadan, were greatly en-couraged in drawing and painting portraits, inillustrating legend and history or contemporarylife, both in fresco on the walls of palaces andvillas, and in exquisite miniature paintings, usuallyintended for the illustration of manuscripts. Butnot even Akbar, who took a most liberal and en-lightened view of art, permitted the representationof a human being, or of the Deity, in a mosqueor building consecrated to religion ; or attemptedto revive a school of religious painting. The ruleof the Sunna is scrupulously observed in thedecoration of the great mosque at Fatehpur Sikri,where Akbar promulgated his new religion, TheDivine Faith. The fresco paintings of the Mogul period, likethose of Hindu times, have nearly all perished; PLATE LIIIA WOUNDED LION
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MOGUL MINIATURE PAINTING 189 only a few fragments remaining of the decorationof Akbars palace at Fatehpur Sikri.^ Our present knowledge of Mogul painting isalmost entirely derived from the miniature pic-tures, painted on a very fine Indian or Chinesepaper, which in spite of the delicate material havemore often survived, as they were frequently care-fully preserved in royal libraries or in privatecollections. In the early Mogul times oil-painting was notpractised by Indian artists, and it should be under-stood that these miniature pictures were not asa rule hung on the walls of apartments, or usedfor decoration, like modern European cabinetpictures. The pictures of the Indian chitrdsdlaswere always painted directly in the walls in fresco,but these miniature paintings were kept likevaluable manuscripts, and only brought outoccasionally to be handed round for discussionand criticism ; just as in Japan to-day the paintedsilk scrolls, called kakemonos, are displayed oneat a time at a tea-p

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