Studio: international art (27.1903)

Indian Pictorial Art

restored to them, the Court artists were free to been most disastrous to all art progress in India,
exercise their talents under the most favourable The traditions of the Mogul school were continued
auspices. by artists who settled at Delhi, Jeypore, Lahore,

Under these stimulating conditions a new and Mysore, and elsewhere; but painting as a fine art
characteristically Indian school of pictorial art never regained the position and dignity it enjoyed
began to graft itself upon under Akbar and

the traditions imported Jehangir. Nevertheless,

from Persia. The early HUHgWMHHHHjjHHHHj short period

work of Akbar's reign of their prosperity, and

follows to a great extent even afterwards under

the archaic and highly m<W*-^ the successive blight of

conventionalised style of SP®^ Mahomedan bigotry,

the old Persian school, political anarchy, and

but towards the end of ', T\ British philistinism, the

his reign the great ruler's if C\ lyl Mogul artists produced

genius had impressed it- f" /J I a record of Indian life,

self upon the art in which manners, and history

he took so enlightened f BS^^V'^ v"^' ~ which has been almost

an interest. The new entirely ignored, even

school was realistic in -jjj; Sfm-' \'A ^ . by those who are in-

the sense that it went -life terested in the art and

direct to nature for in- B j «| ^ archaeology of the great

spiration, but it did not, ••^jjf' |:^^^^ Indian empire,

like some modern Euro- This brief sketch of

pean realists, fling artistic the history of painting

tradition to the winds. in India is necessary for

The Mcgul artists added the right understanding

nical qualities and the Abanindro Nath Ta-

strong decorative in- >J, '^fiT gore, of Calcutta, which

stinct of the Persian I now introduce to the

school a greater anato- readers of The Studio.

mical precision in the Mr. A. N. Tagore comes

J„„,;„„ _f ,.1 _ r-__ "THE TRAVELLER AND BY ABANINDRO NATH . r , _ _ .. .,

drawing of the figure, ■ 0f an old Indian family

, , __ ,, . THE LOTUS TAGORE . 1

and an almost Holbein- distinguished for its

esque power of delineat- literary, musical, and

ing character in their portraiture. Under Jehangir, artistic talent. One of his brothers, Mr. Robindro

the son and successor of Akbar, who inherited Nath Tagore, has won a great reputation as a

all his father's taste, these new ideas continued to Bengali poet and dramatist. Another near relative,

bear fruit, and gave fair promise of the develop- Sir Sourindro Mohun Tagore, Mus. Doc, has

ment of a really great school of Indian painting. earned a European name as the chief authority on

Though Shah Jehan's artistic interests inclined Indian music.

more to architecture than to painting, there is It speaks much for Mr. Tagore's genuine artistic

nothing to show that he actively discouraged the instinct that he has not allowed his talent to be

artists whom his father and grandfather had misled by the many snares which beset the path of

patronised so liberally. But the bigotry of the Indian art student. It is often made a reproach

Aurungzebe, the successor of Shah Jehan, wrecked against the present generation of Indians that so

the fair prospects of the Mogul school of painting, few have shown any originality in artistic or literary

He enforced again the strict observance of the thought. The reproach should rather be levelled

Mahomedan law, banished from his Court the against our educational system; for if the system had

artists who had impiously disregarded it, and muti- been expressly contrived for the stifling and crush-

lated or defaced all the sculpture and paintings ing out of all originality, nothing could have been

which were deemed to be irreligious. better adapted for the purpose than what is called

This was the beginning of a period which has " higher education " in India. Original artistic

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