MUGHAL PAINTINGS UNDER JAHANGIR.

INTRODUCTION:
Jahangir was one of the great Mughal emperors and was adorned with many
qualities. He was known for his mad love for paintings and architecture. His
keen interest in paintings led him to hold meetings with many talented hands
and later he appointed some fresh as well as experienced talents in painting in
his court for artwork. His reign is known for wide architect work and of course
paintings. It is often said that he could even tell the name of the painter by just
looking at its visuals.
Jahangir’s memoir ‘JAHANGIRNAMA’ give a unique quality of
immediacy to many paintings of the reign. Moreover, his interest wasn’t
restricted to one genre of painting but to every like European paintings,
religious paintings and even one fine day on his way to Kashmir he got
fascinated by the beauty of nature and asked the painter ‘MANSUR ’to paint
them.

PAINTINGS FOR JAHANGIR:

Jahangir known as prince Salim in initial days, like his father was curious about
religious works of the Christian and according to Jesuit accounts, was equally
excited by the paintings brought to the court at Lahore with the third mission. It
was led by father Jerome Xavier, who wrote to the general of the Society of
Jesus in 1595 requesting that a ‘beautiful large picture of holy virgin ‘should be
sent for king and for Salim. Both father and son were involved in a competition
for European paintings that they asked their respective artists to copy their style
and with this at a slow and steady rate Mughal painters started aping European
style and techniques which resulted in modified outputs. Prince Salim’s desire
didn’t stop here his fascination kept on increasing day by day as after becoming
emperor he added many Christian work in his collection. Jerome Xavier’s
account suggest that Salim worked with his artists as the father once saw him
directing two painters about two small pictures depicting the appearance of the
angel to the shepherds and deposition from the cross.
Between 1600 and 1605, the character of Mughal painting changed
perceptibly, but it is difficult to differentiate between work done by Salim’s
artists and that of Akbar’s atelier during the same period, unless it is signed or
dated. Although a very illustrated manuscripts have colophons recording their
completion at Allahabad and the names of some of the small groups of artists
working there. His fascination remained acute and it didn’t stem, as fathers
fondly imagined, from his ‘devotion to our savior and his holy mother, whose
images he held in highest veneration’. He commissioned new paintings with
Christian themes during his brief interlude at Agra; ‘he had painted in a book
pictures illustrating the mysteries of his life, death and passion; and because at
the beginning of the book there was a cross illuminated in gold he ordered the
artists to paint thereon the figure of Jesus Christ crucified; and on another page
was the name Jesus encircled with rays, he had painted in the midst a picture of
our lady and her infant son with his arms about her neck.’
Akbar died in Oct 1605, after him prince Salim became the emperor,
inheriting the royal library and its precious contents. Jahangir’s atelier was
smaller than Akbar’s at its peak in 1590s, when there had been more than 100
artists of high quality with many others of lessor renown. Working practices
also changed, with a single artist having greater responsibility for the final
touchups etc. further Jahangir continued Akbar’s practice of collecting portraits
of court personalities, usually depicted full figure with their faces in profile
against a green ground, though other colors such as a deep burnt sienna now
appear. Jahangir’s artists began to manipulate these images, pasting some in
groups of four on single pages for his albums, and occasionally disgusting the
joins so that the characters seem to inhabit a fantastic landscape. For ex-
Manohar (son of famous painter basawan , also worked under Akbar’s and
Jahangir’s reign)used the official portrait format in a very different way, as seen
in his painting of Jahangir in a walled garden receiving a jeweled gold cup from
his son. Parviz, surrounded by a high ranking members of court. The vivid use
of colors draws attention from odd qualities of composition, in which the scale
of each figure is slightly wrong. Comparison with other portraits of the figures,
who are carefully labelled with their names or titles in minute writing on their
clothing, reveals why; they must all have been traced from exact portraits,
meaning that the posture and size of each is predetermined.
Apart from this we’ve many examples of paintings in Jahangir’s
memoir JAHANGIRNAMA. As mentioned above jahangirnama is most
important source for providing information concerning about paintings of his
reign etc. but some details concerning individual artists are often frustratingly
allusive. The first to be mentioned by name is farrokh beg who came to Akbar’s
court from Kabul in 1585, following the death of his patron, mirza Muhammad
hakim. He made two paintings an aged mullah and a Darvish and about these
paintings Jahangir write that they were a work of seventeenth year. The outlines
for both figure must have been traced from the same model as their height width
everything was almost same. Another artist held high in eye of Jahangir was
mentioned only once in his memoir is abul Hasan it is known that abul Hasan
fulfilled Jahangir’s general desire to have accuracy in paintings. Apart from
these two there were some other painters too in his reign like Mutribi al Asamm
Samrqndia and mansoor, who was given the title Nader al-asr at the same time
abul Hasan was honored. Mansur also worked on two akabarnama paintings in
which animals were shown very vividly as Mansur had a good knowledge about
wildlife and flowers. Not only this Jahangir too asked Mansur to paint the
nature, animals so that everyone can feel them not only in imagination but also
in visuals so following Jahangir’s order he painted many things like turkey cock
,ravishing beauty of Kashmir, well scripted painting of zebra etc. Jahangir was
very much impressed by the work of Mansur and singled Mansur’s skill at
drawing being ‘unique in his generation’. The turkey crock is a perfect example
of Mansur’s style. He was a careful, precise, and probably slow draftsman; and
his color is applied in small areas are meant to describe scientifically the
physical surface of the subject. Backgrounds are often visually empty,
frequently left as untouched paper, with a few simple plants to lend rhythm to
the composition. His talent represents skillful accomplishment of an established
style. Apart from Mansur the best known work of Abu’l Hasan is the enigmatic
squirrels in a plane tree. The squirrels are the most natural and closely observed
animals ever painted by Mughal artists. Set against the gold sky, the tree,
together with the pattern created by the squirrel’s tails, also creates a superbly
decorative surface composition not only this Abul Hasan also painted Jahangir’s
accession painting which Jahangir described as very lavish and animated.
(Jahangir surrounded by courtiers, is enthroned within a tent enclosure in the
fort of Agra, and above him are two large paintings of European subjects. On
the left, inside a gateway is a crowd of spectators, which includes a black robed
Jesuit priest and a dandified European gentleman. Men bring gifts and kneel in
homage, a superbly self-satisfied courtier tosses out a shower of gold and silver
coins overall that was a very amusing and boisterous scene. Jahangir was shown
as very powerful, winning and serene in most of the illustrations. In one portrait
Jahangir is seen sitting in a European fashion with his feet on a globe
(proclamation of world dominance). All this shows us that not only Jahangir
admired his court painters but in return his painters admired him too by showing
him in best colors and illumination in their work. This all continued for many
years and with each passing year they were becoming good in their skill of
aping European paints or the religious one etc. but after a certain time period
that is by 1605, the Mughal painters were no longer interested in those aspects
of European works which previously had their attention; the sense of spatial
depth, or exotic Christian subject matter. These interest have certainly helped to
make Mughal painting popular and seemingly comprehensible outside of India,
but they must have remained foreign exoticisms to viewers in India at that time.