THE PERSIAN AND INDIAN TRADITIONS
DURING the period of history that corresponds to the Middle Ages in Europe, India was the prey of foreign invaders; these invaders belonged to certain tribes and races overflowing from Central Asia-Muhammadans conquering the land of the Hindus. Much of the success of these invaders was due to the fact that India was divided up into a number of independent sovereignties, and that its inhabitants were never in complete unity. The various Hindu kingdoms fought hard to keep their dominions intact-their resistance to the Muslim hordes is one of the finest chapters in their history--but their lack of cohesion was the main cause of their downfall. From the seventh century, Arabs and Turks, Afghans and Tartars, Pathans and Mongols, one after the other, sword in hand, swept through the country, massacring its populace, dese-crating its shrines, razing its cities to the ground, and carrying off in triumph to adorn their own distant capitals that which they did not destroy. Some of these conquerors, however, did not return to their original homes. Attracted by the fairness of the land of which they found themselves masters, they remained, there in the course of time to build up independent kingdoms on the ruins of those they had devastated. So in time we see India divided up among a number of alien rulers, the country as a whole still largely Hindu, but great tracts of it dominated by Muhammadans from Central Asia. Such was the state of the country in the beginning of the sixteenth century. At that time a power arose in Northern India which absorbed all these independent states, and brought the Indian people under one administration, welding the entire country into one imperial whole. This was the Empire of the Mughals. Founded by Babur in the early years of the sixteenth century, it remained the dominant power in India until the beginning of the eighteenth century, when, after the death of the Emperor Aurangzeb, it began to decay. The pictures painted by the Mughal school of artists illustrate the story of this period of two hundred years, when the Mughal dynasty ruled over one of the greatest empires in the East.
The designation 'Mughal' is the usual one employed by European writers when referring to this dynasty and the empire it governed. It is another form of 'Mongol', a name which, in h, in the thirteenth century, had made itself known, as well as feared, from China to the Adriatic. This designation for the empire in India is, however, not literally correct, as the original ancestors of the Mughal emperors were more Turks than Mongols. They were directly descended from Timur, who was a Central Asian Turk; and were only remotely connected, through a female, with Chinghiz Khan, the Mongol 'scourge of Asia'. The Mughal dynasty in India was therefore Timurid in origin; and the heritage that Babur brought with him to the land of his conquest was that which, under Timur and his descendants, attained such lustre on the banks of the Oxus. But while Babur was little more than a youth the house of Timur had already begun to totter, and the end of the fifteenth century saw the transfer of royal power from Transoxiana to the cities of Persia proper, where the Safavid kings, with their capital at Tabriz, held their court amidst much splendour and artistic wealth. While it was the blood and traditions of the Timurids that the Mughals brought with them to India, it was the contemporary civilization of Persia from which they were to draw much of their inspiration in learning and in art. Correctly to appreciate the influences which were to have such a marked effect on the pictorial art of India, a sketch of the evolution of Persian painting will be first outlined; and this will be followed by a brief description of the state of painting in India leading up to the time when the art of the two races came into contact.
Among the many beautiful arts that were practised in certain famous cities of Eastern Asia, few attained a higher state of refine-ment, during a period that extended from the fourteenth to the six-teenth century, than that of book illustrating. Manuscripts, finely written, and lavishly illuminated, found great favour with the ruling princes, who vied with one another in encouraging the production of such works of art. These manuscripts were often freely em-bellished with pictures illustrating the text, so that the brush of the painter was as much in demand as the pen of the writer. The cities chiefly famed for those proficient in the painter's craft were Baghdad, Basrah, and Wasit in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, Samarqand, Bukhara, and Herat in the fifteenth century, and Tabriz, Kazvin, Ispahan, and Shiraz in the sixteenth century. This art of illustration, which was distributed over a wide area, has been generally described by modern European writers as 'Persian paint-ing'. For several reasons a classification of this art into definite schools has presented unusual difficulties, one illustration of which will explain. It was customary in mediaeval times for poets and painters, writers and musicians, to be attached to courts, thus forming part of the brilliant assembly of talent which usually surrounded the throne of an Eastern potentate.
PATRONAGE
In the rare periods of peace, men of genius were free to take service under any prince or noble who could show them the most generous patronage. But in times of war or invasion they were too often treated as treasured chattels, some-times bartered as part of an indemnity, or more often carried away to distant lands to grace the capital of the conqueror. The intrinsic value of the leading calligrapher at the Safavid court was actually estimated by one of the Mughal emperors, for when Jahangir heard of the death of Mir 'Imad, he is said to have wept for grief, exclaiming that 'if Shah Abbas had sent him to me I would have paid his weight in pearls for him. But, as we shall see, Jahangir was an enthusiast usiast and and regarded the artistic gift as 'more precious than rubies'. Learning, and the arts especially, did not always grow naturally like a language, but developed very much on the lines of patronage; talent often travelled far to find the home where it would be most highly appreciated. In these circumstances a geographical reference has been considered by most authorities to be the soundest basis for a definition of Persian painting. Even in such a classifica-tion, however, one fact must be borne in mind. It will be noticed that of the centres of the art of painting enumerated above, only four are situated within the dominions of modern Persia. Baghdad, Wasit, and Basrah are in Mesopotamia, Samarqand and Bukhara are in Turkestan, while Herat is in Afghanistan. But during one of its most famous periods, in the first centuries of the Christian era, the Persian empire, under the Sasanid dynasty, included all of these within its boundaries, as its territories extended from the Tigris on the west to the Oxus on the east. In its widest sense, therefore, to allude to the painting of these cities as Persian is historically correct.
Persian painting has been resolved into several broad chrono-logical divisions, the three most important being the Mongol, the Timurid, and Safavid. Previous to the Mongol, and up to the middle of the thirteenth century, a style of painting was practised in Mesopo-tamia which may be classed as Primitive. Then ensued the Mongol from 1250 to 1360, a century of infinite importance, as it brought into the art of painting new clements from the Far East. This was succeeded by the Timurid, which flourished at Samarqand, Bukhara, and Herat, from 1375 to 1500, gradually merging into the Safavid, with its principal seat at Tabriz. Under the Safavid dynasty during the sixteenth century it reached its most mature state, only to decline rapidly in the seventeenth century. A short account of these different phases of Persian painting will give an outline of the progress of the art until it sent out its offshoot to Hindustan.
The earliest chapters of Persian painting are mainly records of destruction. The history of Central Asia is a repetition of hordes of invaders sweeping from east to west, or west to east, leaving desola-tion and devastation in their train. The first result of these great martial migrations was to destroy the civilization of the countries invaded, to sack and burn their cities, to decimate their people, and to obliterate their handiwork. Then, if conditions were favourable and circumstances permitted, there was erected on the ashes of the old a new civilization, expressive in its arts and sciences of the mentality of the conquerors, their religion, and their mode of life. Such was the Arab invasion of Persia in the seventh century of the Christian era. Bearing the victorious pennant of the Prophet, these early Muslims swept down on the seven cities' of the Sasanids, taking them by storm, carrying off their rich contents, and leaving behind nothing but ruin and decay. Of that powerful dynasty, of its architecture and its arts, practically nothing has survived, except that great lonely arch on the Tigris at Ctesiphon, as a record of its pride. So completely has the art of Persia of this period vanished that it is only here and there that its motifs can be identified. But reminiscences of it are to be traced in the painting of the Persians at a later date, in the flying ribbon-like draperies, probably also in the figures with wings, and certainly in the winged horse, dragons, and fabulous creatures occasionally seen in the designs of the mediaeval East and West. These particular motifs, however, were those used mainly in the arts of Western Persia, as they were practised in the now ruined cities of Mesopotamia. The art of the Arab conquerors which developed later on the banks of the Tigris, while it took some-thing from the Sasanid civilization it had destroyed, probably owed much more to another school of painting, which developed in Central Asia about this time. To understand this it is necessary for us, for the time being, to transfer our attention from the Tigris and Euphrates, on the western limits of ancient Persia, to the territory beyond its far eastern boundaries on the confines of the Chinese empire. Here in Eastern Turkestan, in a tract of country referred to as the Tarim Basin, from the third to the ninth century A. D. a state of civilization was maintained, and an artistic culture generated, which was to influence in no slight degree the arts of the whole East.
PAINTING IN TURKESTAN
The existence of the school of painting, for it specialized in this form of expression, only recently brought to light in one of the most desolate portions of Asia, needs some explanation. The cities of the Tarim Basin lay athwart the overland route connecting the Far East with the rest of the then known world. This highway, as a means of communication, has now lost its significance, but in the first millennium of the Christian era much of the traffic of the occident with the orient passed through this portion of Turkestan. Not only merchants with caravans of negotiable commodities, but pilgrims and embassies, courts and officials, travellers and priests, journeyed to and fro over this broad thoroughfare. But what made that section of the route which centred around the Tarim river of some consequence, and led to considerable human activity in that region, was that here lay the most important junction of the whole highway. Here two great arteries met, the main one which ran east and west joining with a branch which came up from the south through the passes of the Hindu Kush from India. For several centuries during the first millennium of the Christian era one of the pulses of the orient throbbed in the busy towns of the Tarim Basin, where commerce and agriculture flourished and the trades and occupations depending on them throve. But in these living cities the material needs of man were not the only consideration. Here, owing to the cosmopolitan nature of its population, men of many creeds for-gathered, and to minister to these a number of religious establish-ments were maintained, some of them lavishly endowed. Monas-teries and temples were founded; and one feature of these buildings was the rich mural painting with which many of them were embel-lished. But the main interest of these wall decorations lies in the fact that they depict so many divergent creeds, and, accordingly, elements from as many different arts. Here are pictures of Chinese character, provincialized it is true, but showing a connexion with those of the T'ang period. With these may be seen motives taken direct from Grecian sources, Christian art brought by the Mani-chaeans, who carried their tenets into this distant field. Sasanid features may also be distinguished, showing the artistic influence of ancient Persia extended well beyond its borders. And side by side with these are paintings whose origin was in the distant south, reflecting the frescoes of Ajanta, the Buddhism of India. The spade of the excavator has revealed traces of other religious and artistic movements, all of which show that this comparatively small expanse of country, now swallowed up by desert sand, was the meeting place of many of the cultures of the East and West. That it was no insignificant outpost, at least so far as painting was concerned, is proved by its relations with the art of China. In the seventh century Khotan, south of the Tarim Basin, contributed two very famous artists to the Chinese schools of the Sui and T'ang dynasties, the Wei-ch'ih, father and son, whose names occupy a high place in the early annals of painting in the Far East. This development of art in Turkestan, which drew its inspiration from so many different sources, was, however, more of the nature of an 'artistic exchange' than a definite school of painting. It was not what it produced itself, so much as its effect on the countries around it, that gives it impor-tance in the history of art in Asia. And something of its composite character, carried along the great eastern trade-route, eventually found its way into the artistic schemes of the Arabs, when these early followers of the Prophet began to build up their own civilization on the low-lying banks of the Tigris.
From this and other sources the material was brought which formed the foundations of the Persian illustrator's art. But it was not until the twelfth century that we meet with the first actual examples of his brush, in a group of rare manuscripts executed at Baghdad, Wasit, and Basrah on the Tigris. By this time the descendants of the Arabs who had destroyed the empire of the Sasanids had in their turn established their own magnificent cities in Mesopotamia, where, under the sumptuous rule of the Caliphs, art again flourished. The few pictures that have survived from this early period are in a distinctive style, and have been broadly referred to as Arab or Primitive. Although some of these date from the twelfth century, the best work was produced under the Abbasid Caliphs of Baghdad in the thirteenth century. One famous manu-script is Schefer's Hariri, prepared in A. D. 1237, from the numerous illustrations of which it is possible to realize fully the character of the Arab or Primitive style. One sees in these pictures a determined effort on the part of the artists to pick up the threads of pictorial art again, especially the representation of human and living forms, after the first destructive period of the Arabs had passed. The style of workmanship is crude and archaic, but the compositions are full of spirit and vigour, being graphic illustrations of the life and appear-ance of the people of the time. The Arabs had no traditional pictorial art of their own, and accordingly drew upon the art of other people for their material, and utilized craftsmen from other countries to assist them in giving expression to their ideas. In the Hariri pictures therefore, while much may be discerned that is genuinely indigenous, there is also much that has been borrowed from other schools.
ARAB ART
Where the artist was engaged in representing scenes from desert life, the intimate knowledge of the Arab is plainly visible, in his drawing of the horse and the camel, the ass and all beasts of burden; in his truthful delineation of these, the Mesopotamian illustrator has rarely been excelled. But blended with this ingenuous naturalism are stiff and studied elements from a remote classical source, copied from contemporary Byzantine art, and transformed in a variety of ways to comply with the requirements of the Caliph's creed. The nimbus, the saintly vestments, columned porticoes, and many other accessories associated with the mosaics of the basilicas, were introduced into these Islamic manuscripts by the adaptable hands of Syrian Christian illuminators engaged by the Abbasids to work under their orders. The treatment of the vestments in these Arab pictures shows how the exquisite drawing of the Greeks had by constant copying become so conventionalized as to lose all resemblance to drapery and to assume the appearance of the petals of a flower or the vein markings of a leaf. It is, however, in their occasional reminiscences of the art of the Buddhists that these Abbasid manu-scripts have a special interest, thus showing that the influence of the fresco painting of India had reached not only to Turkestan in the north and China in the east, but as far as Baghdad in the west. We see dark-skinned monks in Indian garments, with haloes, posed in the Buddha attitudes, seated in Arab bazaars, their features and clothing contrasting strongly with the Semitic profiles and gown-like costumes of the other people in the picture. These are followed by more Indian figures in coloured loin-cloths, gold bangles around their wrists, gathered around a shrine and looking as if they had stepped down from the walls of Ajanta itself.
Such was the general character of the Arab illustrated manu-scripts of the thirteenth century, a striking attempt at a revival of pictorial art evincing in their intention a naïve sincerity which promised much. But whether these early attempts would have developed on natural lines into a definite school will never be known, for in 1258 Baghdad, and the culture that it represented, was destroyed, and the progress of art in Persia received another check. The force that swept away the Arab régime on the Tigris came this time from the East, and was a political convulsion which changed the whole aspect of civilization in the Orient. This was the invasion of the Mongols. The course of the Central Asian hordes, gathering momentum as they swept across the continent, was, in its first phase, like that of the Arabs, one of the most appalling destruction. In their primitive state these barbarians had little use for the refine-ments of any form of civilized life, and resented them in others. Fortunately after a time this stage passed away, and, as they became less nomadic, their spirit craved for something of a more permanent nature than the tented city of their earlier days. Having no artistic attainments of their own, they were compelled to go to those whom they had conquered for the embellishment of their courts, and all the arts of peace. The first country to feel the Mongol influence, when these tribes broke away from their pasturage on the Central Asian steppes, was China. To this artistic people, therefore, the Mongols soon began to look for aesthetic inspiration, employing Chinese painters and craftsmen, even carrying them away in the course of their triumphant progress, to distant capitals to decorate their palaces and adorn their halls. In this manner was brought about that similarity which is noticeable in the arts of the east and west of Asia during the Mongolian era. For the time being the greater part of the continent was under the rule of one house, and interchange of thought over wide arcas became an easy matter. While Persia was imbibing the art of the Far East as practised under the Sung dynasty, so Chinese artists were probably drawing some-thing from the west. We see this in the thirteenth-century painting of Ch'ien Hsuan, and also in the early porcelain of China which was decorated sometimes with panels of a Kufic script. But the fusion of the arts of Asia under the Mongol flux had another result. Persia had previously looked mainly westward for inspiration, drawing it indirectly from European sources; but from now onward for several centuries it turned its back deliberately on the Occident, and looked steadfastly towards the rising sun. From this time the schools of China were its classics, and to these it owes much of the spirit of its art. From China were brought many cunning workmen skilled in all industries, decorators in glaze, embroiderers and painters. One of the Mongol Khans, Hulagu, is said to have imported over a hundred families of Chinese artisans and craftsmen to his court in Persia to carry out his artistic schemes. Settling down in the bazaars of Iran they carried on their trade exactly as they had done for centuries in Pekin, except that they adapted their designs to the requirements of their Mongol overlords. And on occasion, consign-ments of Chinese art, paintings and porcelain, metal-work and carved wood, would arrive by caravan at the western capitals of the Mongol empire to be applied to the buildings, to decorate the interiors, or to grace the festive entertainments of the ruling Khans. Thus by the fourteenth century Persian art had become a provincialized form of the Chinese, as much of the later painting of the Persian Mongol school testifies. Plate I is an example of the illustrative art of this period. It is a picture taken from a fragmentary manuscript in the Rampur State Library dealing with the history of the Mongols, and depicts a state ceremony.
THE COURT OF YISUN TIMUR
Friar Odoric's account of his visit to the Court of Yisun Timur about 1325 describes the scene. 'When the Khakan sat on his throne the queen was on his left hand, and a step lower down two others of his women, while at the bottom of the steps stood the other ladies of his family. All those who were married wore upon their heads the foot of a man as it were, a cubit and a half in length, and at the top of the foot there were certain crane's feathers, the whole foot being set with great pearls, so that if there were in the whole world any fine and large pearls they were to be found in the decoration of those ladies. Below stand all those who are of the blood royal... and in front of the king stand his barons and others, an innumerable multitude.' This illustra-tion, therefore, has two interests. It is not only a prototype of the Mughal painter's art, but also depicts a Mongol progenitor of the dynasty which introduced Persian painting into Hindustan.
Persian art remained in the manner described under Chinese-Mongol influence for a hundred years, but its association with the art of the Far East displayed itself long after the Mongol rule had passed away. The importance of this intercourse should be fully realized, as it explains much of the character of the Persian and Indian work which followed. It brought into Persian painting, and, indirectly, into the miniatures of India, that calligraphic outline which is one of its most distinguishing features. More than that, it stimulated the drawing of the figure, and especially gave to it that rhythmic quality and flowing contour which it retained from this time onward throughout out its course. Under the Mongols the centres of the art, which, as we have seen were previously located on the Tigris, were moved to the seats of the Khans in Northern Persia. It is probable that most of the paintings of the Perso-Mongol style were executed either at Maraghah in Azarbaijan, Sultania, or Tabriz, where the courts were mainly held. But the next phase of the art developed much farther east, in the cities of the Oxus-Bukhara and Samarqand. Here, amidst the chaos caused by the disintegration of the Mongol empire in the later half of the fourteenth century, a new power arose, which was to have a marked effect on the political situation of Persia, and of Asia generally. The central figure of this movement was the Amir Timur-Tamerlane-one of the mostruthless despots Asia has ever produced. But although an icono-clast, where religions other than his own were concerned, Timur was, in his capital at Samarqand, a great patron of learning and the arts. This appreciation of the intellectual talents of others, which compensates not a little for the immense destruction he brought about in other countries, especially in India, was not confined only to the founder of the dynasty. It was the family heritage of the Timurids, as several of his descendants brought even greater lustre to this great name by their marked interest in all forms of culture and refinement. And this tradition was carried by a scion of his house, the chivalrous Babur, to India, to produce two centuries later the art of the Mughals. In view, therefore, fore, of of its direct bearing on the painting of India, the Timurids, and the art that they so magnificently developed, may be more fully described.
Although there is no actual record of Timur's personal interest in the art of painting, his patronage showed itself in other ways, in the encouragement of poets, musicians, and philosophers who flocked to his brilliant court, and in the magnificent style in which he built and embellished his capital at Samarqand. Architecture, under this dynasty, was regarded as the noblest of all the arts, and the cities of the Timurids, sumptuously planned as they were, undoubtedly laid the foundation of the notable aesthetic movement that was to follow. The first prince of this royal line to maintain painters at his court was Shah Rukh. He was Timur's favourite son, and ruled at Herat, but his authority extended over the whole of Persia. Shah Rukh himself was a man of scholarship, a song-writer of no mean order, but he specially concerned himself with the achievements of other countries. In 1419 he sent a well-equipped mission to China, and later, one to India, with instructions that its members were to keep a journal noting all that was remarkable in each town and each province through which they passed. With the embassy to China was included an artist, Ghiyath ud-din Khalil, an expert with the brush, and one of the earliest Persian painters to be mentioned by name. 'The artistic connexion with the schools of the Far East, begun by the Mongols, was therefore continued under the Timurids, for Babur in describing one of the mosques of Samarqand does not fail to remark that it was adorned with Chinese pictures. Although Shah Rukh's reign was a record of artistic encouragement, he was succeeded by several princes of the house of Timur, who equalled if not excelled him as patrons of learning and especially as ardent bibliophiles. At Astarabad, Baisunghar, a son of Shah Rukh, retained forty artists all employed in copying or illustrating manuscripts under the supervision of Maulana Ja'far, one of the leading illuminators of the day.
TIMURID SCHOOL
The work of the painters in the service of this prince was of sufficient importance to be referred to by later writers as the Baisunghar school. Ulugh Beg, another son, was a distinguished scholar, and did much to enrich Samarqand, and also Marv, with with co colleges and libraries. At Bukhara, too, learning flourished, and, later, painting was developed to such an extent that this city also has given its name to a school of illustrative art. But it was left to the state of Khurasan, when this was governed by the Sultan Husain Mirza, towards the end of the fifteenth century, to make the most notable contribution to the rising fame of the Persian school. At the court of this ruler, who was a great-grandson of Timur's son 'Umar Shaikh, was gathered a galaxy of talent, renowned poets such as Jami and Hatifi, historians such as Mir Khwand and his grandson Khwandamir, with many others whose names are treasured in the literary annals of the East. But the greatest of all this brilliant gathering was the painter Bihzad. What Raphael was to the art of Europe, Bihzad was to the art of Asia, so that he has been fittingly referred to as the 'Raphael of the East'. It is doubtful whether the history of art records any other single individual who has exercised a more direct influence on the graphic art of his time than Bihzad. He had numerous pupils and followers, some of whom, such as Aga Mirak, Sultan Muhammad, and Mirza Ali, assimilated much of his excellence, but none of them ever attained the exquisite drawing or superb colouring of this great master of the craft, an example of whose work is reproduced in Plate II. It is not an exaggeration to say that the Persian character observable in the painting of India during the Mughal period came straight from the hand of Bihzad. Pictures by Mir Sayyid Ali, the leading Persian painter in India in the service of the Mughals, whose father was a contemporary of, and worked with, Bihzad, are referred to by most authorities as in the style of this master. But it was in the subject of portraiture, one of the most striking developments of the Mughal art, that the Indian school shows its closest affinity with the productions of Sultan Husain's protégé. Previous to the appearance of Bihzad, Persian painters had displayed no special gift for por-traiture, although it was exceedingly popular with their patrons. These had to be content with rather crude attempts at likenesses on the part of their court artists, spirited productions depicting the general features of the sitter, but in no sense finished specimens of the portrait painter's art. The faces they drew were what is known as the 'impersonal' type, that is to say, the facial outlines of each person represented were fundamentally very much alike, being distinguished only by the addition of one or two special details peculiar to the individual concerned. For instance, all women's faces were exactly similar except for differences in the coiffure and other minor accessories, while men had the addition of a beard or moustache, but little else in the features to discriminate one from the other. The advent of Bihzad changed all this. His genius freed the art of portraiture from this impersonal convention, bringing into it life and character by means of his exquisite drawing and modelling. Some of the finest pictures of the Persian school are Bihzad's portraits of his patron and members of his court. The art of producing a likeness therefore came fully developed to India, and accounts to some extent for the wholly matured school of portraiture which flourished under the Mughals.
In 1506 Bihzad's patron, the Sultan Husain, under whom he had worked for some thirty years, died, and the artist then entered the service of a new ruler of Persia, Shah Ismail. Thus imperceptibly the Timurid painting of Persia merged into that of the Safavid. For, as we have seen, the Sultan was a descendant of Timur, while the Shah, a man of an entirely different origin and mode of thought, was the founder of the Safavid dynasty. With the rise of this régime a change came over the political, social, and religious atmosphere of the country, which soon reacted on the character of its art. The Safavid rulers were a race of national monarchs, true Persians by birth and temperament. They practised Sufiism, a manifestation of Muhammadanism from which the dynasty took its name. To appreciate the painting of this time it is necessary to understand a few of the main principles of Sufiism. The original intention of this religious movement was to induce a life of asceticism; its doctrine was a forın of mystic philosophy in which its followers professed a state of 'dying to self and living in God'. It made its tenets known mainly through poetry, the writers of which in order to find suitable expression frequently referred to the pleasures of love and wine; for, according to its expounders, human love leads to divine love, and wine to a condition of ecstasy. In the course of time these original ideals became obscured through the poetical analogies being misunderstood, as much of the Safavid painting plainly shows. It is hardly necessary to point out that the contrast between the mental outlook of the Timurids and that of the Safavids was immense. There is reason to believe that the growth and popularity of Sufiism at this time was a revolt against the materialism of the Timurids. The effect of this new school of thought upon the painting of the country may be imagined. It is true that in the pictures of Bihzad little change is apparent. He was an elderly man when it came ; and besides he was too great a master to be diverted by events even of this magnitude. But on the art of some of his followers it had considerable influence.
SAFAVID SCHOOL
In this way there came into being the Safavid school of painting, which, actively encouraged by Shah Tahmasp, the second ruler of the dynasty, produced at Tabriz, Herat, and Shiraz a large amount of illustrative work. Its character may be judged by referring to Plate III, Fig. 1, which is a typical example of the Safavid style of painting in the middle of the six-teenth century. There is no mistaking the figure-drawing of this period, even if one has not the distinctive head-dress as a guide. The court scenes are rich and varied in colour and composition, but it is in the single-figure subjects, as in Plate III, Fig. 2, that the artists show the true nature of the Sufi. Young men reclining under sprays of almond blossom, swains composing poems to their loves in gardens of flowers, musicians dreamily playing on lutes by the side of purling streams, drinking scenes, feasting scenes, and all that one associates with a life of sensuousness and self-indulgence are depicted in the art of this period. Exquisite though they may be, the Safavid pictures, especially under Shah Abbas towards the end of the sixteenth century, display a sense of over-richness which was a premonition of the decline of the school. And the decline came, followed, as is its wont, by an attempt at a renaissance. In the first half of the seventeenth century an artist of the name of Ali Riza Abbasi of 'Tabriz endeavoured to bring about a revival of the earlier and purer style of work, and produced numerous pictures and sketches displaying considerable merit, which have been much sought after by connoisseurs. But Riza died at some time before 1645, and with him died the Persian school of painting, for the pictures executed in the country since that date have few qualities to commend them. Western influence, acting on every aspect of Persian life, was partly responsible for this decay; but the art of the country had already fallen from its high estate. European contact merely hastened the end.
From this brief account of the evolution of painting in Persia, we may now turn to India and endeavour to follow the progress of this art during the corresponding periods of time. The origin of Indian painting does not begin with the Buddhist frescoes of Ajanta and Bagh. These wonderful wall pictures emerge too fully matured to be regarded as the first stages of the art. Long before the Buddhist artist priest perfected his style of work, painting was extensively practised in India, as many references in ancient literature plainly indicate. Nevertheless these pictures of the first centuries of the Christian era are the earliest actual examples of Indian paintin that have survived. Of the Buddhist school of painting much might be written, but here it will suffice to say that it formed undoubtedly the foundation of the pictorial art of India in all its succeeding phases.
The outstanding feature of these frescoes is their 'Indianness', for, with the exception of a few extraneous elements, they are essentially Indian in character, expressing in the most truthful manner the life of the time. In figure-drawing, in costume, in scenes from nature, in all the accessories introduced by these skilful artists, it is India and all that appertains to the Indian people that are depicted. And this indigenous character, this 'Indianness', is the same as persists and is so plainly discernible in the miniatures of the Hindu artists who worked under the Mughal emperor Akbar nine centuries later.
These two styles of work in many respects are poles asunder. Nothing could be more dissimilar than the spacious wall paintings of the Buddhists and the minute book illustrations of the Mughal school; in subject, in intention, in sentiment, in every outward form, they are different, yet underlying each is something of the same spirit, something which reflects in both forms of expression the mind of the same artist. Except for this indefinable sense of co-relation, there is, however, little else to connect these two schools of painting.
During the long interval that elapsed between them there is but a small amount of material forthcoming, either literary or artistic, to enable us to construct even the semblance of a bridge between the two. Very gradually, however, evidence is coming to light, which may help to fill this wide lacuna, but at present only sufficient has been collected to produce the barest outlines of the story. Of the actual examples of Indian painting executed during the early mediaeval period few have survived. Their scarcity is due to three causes, firstly, the impermanent nature of the art itself; secondly, the action of the climate; and thirdly, the element of human destruction. The first two causes were inevitable, but the last, which was intentional, was the most disastrous of all. What oriental art lost by the tide of religious antagonism which swept over Asia in the earlier centuries of the Middle Ages will never be known. Its parallel had, however, already occurred in the West. What the world lost when the pagan art of classical Europe was condemned by Christianity is also beyond comprehension. But in both continents, on the ruins of the past, new art movements arose which show that expression cannot be suppressed. It is an irony of fate that from the chronicles of one who prided himself on his iconoclastic zeal not a little information as to the extent of the artistic wealth of India at this period may be gleaned.
MAHMUD OF GHAZNI
In the first years of the eleventh century Mahmud of Ghazni, a Muhammadan ruler in Afghanistan, made seventeen attacks on India, the main object of each being the plunder of its sacred edifices. Mahmud was a man of culture in his own dominions, gathering around him to grace his court talented men from many countries, but his attitude towards the people of India displayed a religious fanaticism which knew no bounds. Some of the experiences of this 'Idol-Smasher', for such he gloried in called, as recorded by his own hand according to the historian being cal Farishta, while intended primarily as a note of exultation at the value of his booty, also throw some light on the prolific nature of the arts of the country at this time. Mathura, a place of great sanctity, which he sacked in the year 1019, he thus describes: 'This marvellous city encloses more than a thousand structures, the greater number in marble and as firmly established as the faith of the true believers. If we reckon the money which all these monuments must have cost, it will not be too much to estimate it at several millions of dinars, and moreover it must be said that such a city could not be built even in two centuries. In the pagan temples my soldiers found five idols of gold, whose eyes were formed of rubies of the value of 50,000 dinars, another idol wore as an ornament a sapphire, weighing 400 miskals, and the image itself, when melted, yielded 98 miskals of pure gold. We found besides a hundred silver idols representing as many camel loads.' Mahmud encountered the same wonders in all the cities he passed through. On the expedition which he made in 1024, chiefly for the purpose of destroying the temple of Somnath in Gujarat, he found a wonderful religious re edifice whose fifty-six pillars were covered with plates of gold and had precious stones scattered all about them; thousands of statues of gold and silver surrounded the sanctuary.
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| Mahmud Ghazni in India, an imaginary picture |
MURAL DECORATIONS
These contemporary references to the state of painting in India previous to the sixteenth century may be supplemented nted by an account of the few actual examples of the art which have survived. Of the great mass of wall painting executed after the Buddhist period, implied by the foregoing descriptions, practically nothing is left. At Ellora, in the famous rock-cut temples, there are remains of Brahminical frescoes of the twelfth century, executed in a style which shows that the traditions of Ajanta were still living at thidate. On the walls of some of the palaces of Rajputana there are paintings which may have been executed previous to the founding of the Mughal empire, but this field awaits exploration. This disposes of the whole of the mural decorations at present known to us. There were, however, other means than that of painting on structural surfaces by which the Indian artist might have expressed himself with the brush. Of these there are a few literary references, as well as concrete examples. According to a Chinese writer of the eleventh century at the monastery of Nalanda in Bihar the priests 'painted pictures of Buddhas and Bodhisattvas on the linen of the West',' obviously the same art as that of the tangka or temple-banner of Tibet. None of these painted fabrics has been preserved, but on the other hand there are a few rare examples of illustrated books of the pre-Mughal era which have escaped destruction. Several of these are Jain manuscripts on paper containing pictures of the fifteenth century, but they are crudely painted, and show little evidence of artistic experience. Paper, as explained elsewhere, found small favour with the Indian people, either for commercial, literary, or pictorial purposes, until brought into common use by the Mughals. Its place was taken by the palm-leaf, on which the writing was executed by means of a pointed iron style. Some ofthese palm-leaf manuscripts were illustrated, and a few, with Buddhist miniatures of the twelfth century, have been handed down to us. It seems fairly clear, however, that there was a very limited amount of painting executed in mediaeval India on any other surface than that of the walls of buildings.
As already indicated, the meagre amount of material provided by these somewhat disconnected facts and isolated examples makes the story of the progress of Indian painting largely one of conjec-ture. The condition of the art at the time of Babur's invasion of Hindustan is also a matter of surmise. To summarize, it seems probable that the tradition of the Buddhist frescoes was still maintained, but hardly in its original form. The painting, instead of being applied to the living rock, as at Ajanta and other sites, was adapted to the surface of structural edifices, and so perished when these buildings decayed. Moreover, some alterations in the technical process employed in painting these pictures on prepared masonry may have taken place, and the more permanent method of fresco have given way to a less reliable form of tempera, which, under the climatic conditions prevailing in most parts of India, would readily deteriorate. Most of the large buildings, both religious and secular, were decorated in this manner, and the art found employment for a considerable number of people. In the embellishment of the sacred edifices, selections from the holy books of the Hindus were illustrated, extensive compositions comprising many figures and much symbolism. Of the painting in the palaces of the ruling princes it appears that portraiture was most popular, as it is recorded that Firoz Shah in the fourteenth century, while holding that it was 6 right among monarchs to have painted chambers to gratify their eyes in retirement, prohibited the painting of portraits, as con-trary to the Law, and directed that garden scenes should be painted instead'. When the Mughals therefore began, as we shall see, in the sixteenth century, to turn their attention to the revival of painting in India, they found that, while the indigenous art was from political reasons in a state of atrophy, there still survived a strong living tradition among the people of the country on which the movement that they had in contemplation might be most surely founded.