Mughal Court Culture and Painting

It began in exile, with two Persian painters whom Humayun met abroad. Their skill, mixed with Indian talent, became the Mughal style.

Why was Humayun in Persia?

He had lost his throne. In 1540 the Afghan ruler Sher Shah drove him out of Delhi. For years he was a king only in name. He spent one whole year at the court of Shah Tahmasp of Persia. The Safavid kings then ruled Persia.

Who were the two painters?

Humayun met two young artists in the city of Tabriz.

• Mir Sayyid Ali: a painter who also became a poet. His pen-name was Juda’i.
• Khwajah Abdus Samad: a man from Shiraz. He was a painter and a calligrapher, an expert in fine handwriting.

Humayun held out hopes of work for both men. They would join him once he had a court again.

When did they join him?

They left Persia in 1550 and joined him at Kabul. There Humayun and his little son Akbar took drawing lessons. Abdus Samad was the boy’s teacher. Humayun gave him the title Shirin-qalam, or “Sweet Pen”.

How did the Mughals come back?

Humayun won back Agra and Delhi in 1555. Persian military help made it possible. He died only months later. He fell down the stone steps of his library at night.

In 1556 his son Akbar became emperor at just 13. Akbar ruled until 1605.

• Exile: from 1540 to 1555.
• Respect for a teacher: Akbar paid Abdus Samad great honour, because he had taught him drawing.
• Big idea: Persian masters and Indian artists together made the Mughal school.

It worked like a large royal studio. The emperor himself checked its work every week.

Where was the workshop?

Akbar set up a royal workshop, first at Fatehpur Sikri and then at Lahore. The V&A calls it the royal House of Books, or Ketabkhana. It held the library. Books were also made there.

Many of its calligraphers, bookbinders and illuminators were Iranian. Illuminators decorated pages with gold and colour.

Who painted there?

Well over a hundred painters worked in the studio. The two Persians were the master painters. Most of the rest were Hindus. Akbar had noticed their skill and picked the best.

Abul Fazl was Akbar’s chronicler. He says more than a hundred painters became famous masters. He adds that the Hindu painters were especially skilled. Their pictures “surpass our conceptions of things”.

The artists included Persians, Indian Muslims and Hindus. So their books mixed Persian, Indian and even European elements.

Which painters stood out?

• Daswanth: the son of a palanquin-bearer. For love of the art, he painted figures even on walls. His talent was noticed and he was handed over to the Khwaja, a master of the art. He soon surpassed all painters.
• Basawan: praised for backgrounds, faces, colours and portraits. Many critics preferred him to Daswanth.

How was the work checked?

Every week, officers laid all the painters’ work before Akbar. He gave rewards or raised monthly pay by the quality of the work.

Often two artists shared one picture. One drew the design, called the tarh. A second, junior artist filled in the colours. That was the ‘amal, or “work”.

Did Akbar defend painting?

Yes, openly. Some strict men disliked pictures of living things. Akbar said a painter has a special way of knowing God.

A painter draws a living thing limb by limb. Yet he cannot give it life. So he is forced to think of God, the giver of life.

Did Europe have an effect?

Yes. The first Jesuit mission reached Fatehpur in 1580. Later missions brought European paintings and engravings. Some Akbarnama paintings show a sense of depth taken from European art. True scientific perspective was not used, though.

They were two great illustrated books of Akbar’s reign. The Hamzanama came first. The Akbarnama told Akbar’s own story.

What story does the Hamzanama tell?

It tells the adventures of Amir Hamza, the uncle of the Prophet Muhammad. Hamza and his band fight unbelievers, witches and demons.

These tales were usually performed aloud, not read. Akbar had a court writer turn them into a written text. Calligraphers then copied it into the royal volumes.

Who started it?

The sources differ here.

• Percy Brown: Humayun ordered it at Kabul, and Mir Sayyid Ali began it.
• V&A: Akbar commissioned it. Work ran from about 1562 to 1577.
• Both agree: the two Persian masters, Mir Sayyid Ali and Abdus Samad, directed the work.

How big was it?

Again, the sources do not agree.

• Ain-i-Akbari: twelve volumes, with pictures for 1,400 passages of the story.
• Percy Brown: twelve volumes of 100 folios, so about 1,200 pictures.
• V&A: old records say 12 or 14 volumes, each with 100 paintings.
• Time taken: about 15 years, the V&A says.

Today fewer than 200 of the paintings survive. The largest group, 60 folios, is in Vienna. The V&A in London has 28 complete folios and two fragments.

Why does it look different?

Each folio was large and made in layers. The painting was done on cotton cloth backed with paper. The text was written on paper backed with cotton.

The tall format and high viewpoint come from Iranian painting. But the lifelike animals and birds come from Indian traditions.

What was the Akbarnama?

It is the history of Akbar’s reign, written by Abul Fazl. He began it in 1590 and finished most of it by 1596.

Its third part is the Ain-i-Akbari. It describes the royal household, including the workshop and its leading artists. One illustrated copy is now at the V&A. It covers the years 1560 to 1577 and has 116 paintings.

What else did the workshop paint?

Many Persian books were filled with pictures. Abul Fazl lists the Razmnamah, the Ramayan and the Nal Daman among them. Akbar also sat for his own portrait. He had portraits made of all his great nobles. These were gathered into one huge album.

He made it more lifelike and more personal. Portraits and studies of nature reached their peak.

What did Jahangir want in a picture?

He wanted it true to life. Under him, portraits reached a new level of naturalism. Naturalism means showing things as they really look. Experts link this to European portraits seen at court.

What happened with Sir Thomas Roe?

Sir Thomas Roe was the English ambassador. He showed Jahangir a small portrait by the painter Isaac Oliver. Roe would not give it away, but he lent it. A court artist made copies. Roe was then shown his picture beside five copies. He had trouble finding his own.

Did Jahangir paint his own life?

His artists did. Jahangir wrote his memoirs, the Jahangirnama. He had his best artists paint people, events, birds and animals from it.

Fine single paintings and calligraphy went into his albums, with rich borders. That is why exams link Jahangir with albums and portraits.

Could he really judge painters?

He claimed so. He wrote that he could name the artist of any picture without being told.

If one picture had many faces, he could tell who painted each face. He could even tell who had added the eyes and eyebrows.

Who were his two star painters?

Jahangir wrote that in his father’s reign and his own these two “had no third”.

• Abul Hasan: given the title Nadir uz-Zaman. Jahangir had looked after him since childhood. He painted Jahangir’s accession for the opening page of the Jahangirnama.
• Ustad Mansur: given the title Nadir al-Asr. Jahangir called him unique in his generation in drawing.

Both titles mean roughly “wonder of the age”. Still, they are two different titles. Jahangir liked to invent such playful names.

What did Mansur paint?

Mansur was a famous painter of animals. Jahangir loved the flowers of Kashmir. He asked Mansur to paint as many as he could find. Jahangir later said more than a hundred had been copied.

In 1621 a group of visitors brought rare birds and animals to court. One was an African zebra. Jahangir had never seen one. To him it looked like a horse painted with stripes. Mansur painted it that same year. Jahangir wrote on the picture that it was Mansur’s work.

Through public signs of the emperor’s power and care. A golden chain, a viewing window and set bows all played a part.

What was the Chain of Justice?

It was Jahangir’s first order after he became emperor. He had a chain of pure gold made.

• Size: 30 gaz long, with 60 bells.
• Weight: 4 Indian maunds.
• Ends: one tied to the Shah Burj of Agra fort, the other to a stone post on the river bank.

Officials might delay justice or act falsely. Then a wronged person could come and shake the chain. Its noise would draw attention. Jahangir also gave twelve rules of conduct for his lands.

What was the jharoka?

It was a window or balcony where the emperor showed himself. Jahangir’s memoirs speak of the darshan jharoka. One noble, Lashkar Khan, brought his men there to show him.

What was the naqqarakhana?

It was the drum-house of the court. Jahangir’s memoirs name its officer, the darogha.

How did Shah Jahan change court manners?

He wanted to bring back strict Islamic customs. On the day he took the throne, he gave a new order. The forehead could touch the ground only before God.

He would not even allow courtiers to kiss the ground. Akbar had fixed three bows of greeting, called taslims. Shah Jahan later added a fourth.

Painting lost royal support step by step. Music and gardens still flourished at court.

What changed under Shah Jahan?

Shah Jahan kept a small, select team of painters. One picture shows the staff of Faqirullah Khan, Shah Jahan’s head artist. Four are Muslims and three are Hindus, one of them a Rajput.

He enjoyed their work. But he lacked the passion for pictures that Akbar and Jahangir had. The V&A agrees his interest in books was much less. Yet a writer of his time says he checked the artists’ work every day.

His lasting legacy is his buildings. One is the new city of Shahjahanabad in Delhi, built between 1639 and 1648.

His reign was also very well recorded. One court history is the Padshahnama of Abdul Hamid Lahori.

Where did the other painters go?

After Shah Jahan took the throne, many painter families lost royal support. They opened shops in the bazaar. There they sold to ordinary buyers.

The French doctor Bernier travelled in India from 1656 to 1668. He admired the softness and delicacy of Indian miniatures. He said the arts lived only through the support of the king and nobles.

Did Aurangzeb kill Mughal painting?

Not alone. Aurangzeb deposed his father in 1658. Brown says Mughal painting was a living art for about a hundred years before that. Its decay began then.

• Common view: Aurangzeb’s strict, puritan nature killed the art.
• Brown’s view: it was not the only reason. The empire itself was starting to crumble.
• Best answer: decline began under Shah Jahan and deepened under Aurangzeb.

Who was Tansen?

Music thrived at Akbar’s court. Abul Fazl’s list of court musicians names Miyan Tansen, of Gwalior. He wrote that India had not seen a singer like him for a thousand years.

Which emperors made the Shalimar gardens?

Two famous gardens share the name Shalimar Bagh.

• Srinagar: an older garden. Jahangir enlarged and beautified it in 1619 for Nur Jahan. He named it Farah Baksh, “the delightful”. In 1630 Shah Jahan had it extended as Faiz Baksh, “the bountiful”.
• Lahore: Shah Jahan built it in 1641-42. It has three terraces with pavilions, waterfalls and large ponds. It covers 16 hectares.

UNESCO listed the Lahore garden, with Lahore Fort, in 1981.

Exams test who painted what, who sang where and who served whom. Here are four real past questions, newest first.

The site’s key gives (a), Raja Man Singh Tomar of Gwalior. Do not pick Tansen just because he too was from Gwalior.

The site’s key gives (d), Prince Dara Shikoh. Bernier was a French physician. He travelled in India from 1656 to 1668.

The answer is (c), Jahangir. He had his artists paint single people, birds and animals. His best pages were kept in albums.

The site’s key gives (a) as the wrong statement. Abul Fazl simply lists him as Miyan Tansen, of Gwalior.

What traps should you watch for?

1. Two titles. Abul Hasan was Nadir uz-Zaman. Mansur was Nadir al-Asr.
2. Two Shalimars. Jahangir enlarged the Srinagar garden in 1619. Shah Jahan built the Lahore one in 1641-42.
3. Hamzanama size. Counts differ by source. Fewer than 200 paintings survive.
4. Cloth, not paper. The Hamzanama pictures were painted on cotton.
5. Two men of Gwalior. Tansen sang for Akbar. The site’s key credits Man Singh Tomar with Dhrupad.