Page of Sanskrit love story, Madhanala Kamakandala, early 17th century (Private Collection)

Photographer: Arthur Llewellyn Basham

Page of Sanskrit love story, Madhanala Kamakandala, early 17th century (Private Collection)

Authors

Photographer: Arthur Llewellyn Basham

Description

Akbar died in 1605 and was succeeded by his son, Prince Selim, who took the name of Jahangir, or World-seizer. A connoisseur and collector, Jahangir dismissed many of his father's hundreds of artists, probably because his refined tastes were offended by the work of lesser artists. He was less interested than Akbar in the Rajput style, but paintings of the indigenous type continued to be produced for Rajput patrons. Painting in the Indian tradition served religion, and artists sought to represent an inner reality rather than the outer world. Purely Indian paintings did not contain portraits or specific landscapes. Love stories were a common theme in Indian painting, symbolizing the religious yearning of the soul to unite with the divine. Indigenous paintings were characterized by a limited palette, a compartmentalized composition, and a disregard of perspective. As time passed, however, the indigenous and foreign traditions contributed to each other, so that each style came to contain elements of the other. In this painting, indigenous in inspiration, the man is dressed in Mughal costume, and a tentative effort is made to portray the stairs and bed in perspective.