International studio (80.1925)

Volume

LXXX

Number
333

Feb vuavy 1925

The Romance of AMIR HAMZAH

Wo civilization can A work of small literary empire in disorganized Hin-

be considered to have ^alue, it was beautifully dustan He was successful,

, . , ,• ■ ... , , i i „f remarkably so, ior within a

entered mto obi™ Utustrated by a group of yearafte/hesetouthewas

while its art remains. The Mughal painters established at Delhi, but he

Mughal kings o India made ■ nAi/nrrrvriT/ r pi r

their exit from the political HELEN 60MST06K always felt contempt for

„ . . j j j India and his heart was ever
stage of Asia two hundred

years ago for their real power ended with Au- set upon the cultured world beyond the Oxus and

rangzeb in 1707 but the fragments of their art the fair cities of Bukhara and Samarqand, glorified

which survive in the deserted city of Fathpur by one of his own house, the terrible Amir Timur,

c;t • 1 a ™Inrpq were of Akbar's whom wc know as Tamerlane. Babur's son,

Sikn whose mosques and palaces ^ ere 01 n^ua ,

building or in the marble minarets that surround Humayun, the scholar, who lost the throne his

Jahangir's tomb at Shahdara, left open to the father gamed and then won it back again after a

wind and rain according to his dying wish, or in dozen years, was the real founder of Mughal

the Taj Mahal Shah Jahan's tribute to his dead painting, for he brought back with him from

queen, or, finally, in the magnificent examples of Persia-where he spent most of his exile-two

pictorial and calligraphic art executed for their artists who were the very cornerstone of the

. , ,., . t ik^rnc nnd book illus- Mughal school. But it was Akbar the Ureat,

imperial libraries, whose albums ana dook mus & ,

. , , ■ . nf their Persian empire builder as well as patron ot the arts, who

trations were worthy kinsmen 01 uuw «-

progenitors, the works of Bihzad and Mirak-al was directly responsible for the development of a

of these re-created the epoch for succeeding, and definite Mughal style founded ,n the mam on

,. r r . Persian convention but absorbing much ot the

generally forgetful, generations. . . &

There has never been in Western history so spirit of Indian art in the way of naturalism, big-
long a line'of kingly patrons, rulers who gave ness of design and displaying a more profound
themselves so tirelessly to the direction of their observation of life and incident. And it was
artists, or so energetically to the carrying out of Jahangir the magnificent, the sensitive the most

. . ' tt i„,«,rl nnon their craftsmen esthetic ot them all, Jahangir whose mother was a

their plans. They played upon uuc _ _

• . l:„ instrument, expressing Rajput princess, who gave that art its final form,

as a musician upon his instrunn,nL, y & r , . .

, . , , . • j their own taste, so Under bhah Jahan the tradition continued of its

through them their o\mi ideas, uicu * , .

that 4e art which came into being at the Mughal own momentum but no new vitality was added

t t t f r.;™ r,f Porsian and Hindu, while Aurangzeb the Puritan trowned upon all

court, a beautitul iusion 01 r-cisian 1-

was created not only by the artist-craftsmen but pictorial art in accordance with the word of the

, . . . . Prophet which announced that on the dav of the

by the esthete-kings. ,. . , . J .

Babur founder of the dynasty, who entered resurrection all who had portrayed any living

northern India in 1526, was an artist by tempera- thing should breathe life into their creations or

ment, but his life was spent almost entirely upon perish in torment This, which was designed to

the battlefield stru-Iing first to secure his mher- keep his followers from image worship, was natu-

ited throne in Farghana, and finally, when he saw rally a great stumbling block to pictorial art which

that his attempt was useless, to carve out a new the former kings had had some difficulty in over-

february i 9 2 5

three jorty-nine