Indian Painting B.A. II

1. Indian PaintingB.A. II Dr. O. P. Parameswaran, Assistant Professor, Department of Fine Arts, Post Graduate Govt. College for Girls, Sector-11, Chandigarh.

2. Deccani Painting Bijapur,1570 'Nujum al Ulum‘ (A richly illustrated encyclopedia)

8. 'Nujum al Ulum‘ (A richly illustrated encyclopedia)

9. 'Nujum al Ulum‘ (A richly illustrated encyclopedia)

10. 'Nujum al Ulum‘ (A richly illustrated encyclopedia)

11. Introduction: • While Mughal painting was developing under Akbar, in the second half of the 16th century, the art form was evolving independently in the Islamic kingdoms of the Deccan. • In 1526 the Muslim courts of Ahmednagar, Bijapur and Golconda emerged as the dominant powers in the south.

12. There they became the effete and quarrelsome neighbours of the Hindu Kingdom of Vijaynagar in 1565 they united briefly and destroyed the rich capital of Vijaynagar, but the alliance at once dissolved and the three returned to their languid and introverted ways.

13. The conquerors absorbed many cultural traits of their Hindu enemies and recruited local craftsmen with sound background of medieval art styles of southern India. • Passing through phases of sudden maturation and prolonged stagnation, the schools of Deccani painting flourished in the 16th & 17th centuries but gradually withered away in the 18th & 19th centuries.

14. A multiracial society consisting of Indian Muslims, Hindus, Turks, Persians, Arabs and African shaped the contemporary pictorial idiom that has been likened to an impossible, fantastic mood of a mirage. • Pre Mughal styles of painting as well as Persian, Turkish and even European traditions acted as catalysts to the flowering of miniature painting in the centers of Ahmednagar, Bijapur, Golconda and Hyderabad.

15. Nujum-al-Ulum: A richly illustrated encyclopedia known as the Nujum - al ­ ulum, dated 1570, in the Chester Beatly Library was painted at Bijapur. • A total of 876 miniature paintings are there in this work.

16. Many of the paintings illustrating weapons & utensils, others, the constellations (named group of stars). • These are a series illustrating the spiritual rulers of aspects of the earth who are depicted as formidable ladies in South Indian dress, tall and slender as those in the Ragamala paintings, and like them against a diapered ground or in an architectural niche.

17. This school of Bijapur was patronised by Adil Shah I (1558-1580) and his successor Ibrahim II (1580-1627), both of whom were patrons of art & letters while the latter was an expert in Indian music and author of a book on this subject, the Nauras - Nama.

18. He was the owner of the Nujum-al- Ulum manuscript and he might have commissioned the Ragamala series in the 1590. • Bijapur had a close connection with Turkey & the astronomical illustrations in this book may well derive from an Ottoman Turkish manuscript, such as the work of Fuzuli.

19. The Ruhani pictures, as those of the Aspects of the Earth are called and the Ragamala are as we have seen, Indian in their connection with definite echoes of the Lepakshi style. • They well exemplify the luxuriant aestheticism of the Adil shah court in their daring and brilliantly successful compositions.

20. The Throne of Prosperity is a symbolic diagram of auspicious throne of seven stages each supported by its characteristic inhabitants, from elephants and tigers to palm-trees, through storeys of peacocks & primitive tribes.

21. These friezes of little figures recall the wood - carved house fronts of Gujarat, or the step-risers of the temples of the Deccan with their friezes of Elephants. • The colouring of this page is in the Islamic Persian tradition especially the arabesques on the top of the throne, but this is surmounted by a purely Deccani piece of foliage against the deep blue sky.

22. The stylized plants on either side of the throne recall the margin decoration in a Gujarati manuscript of early 16th C. late. There is thus a long Indian tradition behind this miniature.