asianaffairs

Indian miniatures make big impression

Shyam Bhatia casts an eye over some of the influential Hindu artists and compositions featuring at a forthcoming exhibition in London.

By Shyam Bhatia

The meeting of Vamana and King Bali Sarwar or Bikaner, Circa 1700

The work of an 18th century Indian artist, whose paintings are priced at upwards of US$ 1 million, is expected to be a major attraction at this November's Asian Art fair in London.

Nainsukh of Guler and his family were part of the Kangra school of Hindu painters inspired and trained by miniature artists of the Mughal era.

Born in early 1700, Nainsukh and his brother Manaku were the sons of Pandit Seu who, along with other local artists, flourished under the patronage of the local Rajas of Guler such as Dalip Singh, Govardhan Chand, Prakash Chand and Bhup Chand.

Critics say Guler art is marked by liquid grace and delicacy, drawings are delicate and precise and colours emphasizing cool greens and blues are handled with considerable skill. Examples of Guler art can be found in the Chandigarh museum in North India, as well as in other major museums of the world.

Nainsukh himself left Guler shortly before his father's death in 1740 and settled in the Jammu region, where he entered the service of Raja Balwant Dev of Jasrota and retained his patronage for the rest of his life. The Raja treated him like a son or a brother and this coming together of a generous royal patron and a gifted painter resulted in a series of profound miniatures set against the backdrop of the Jasrota palace and neighbouring hills.

Described as 'extraordinarily refined' and 'psychologically poignant', many pictures demonstrate a close observation of nature. A few are close up studies of the maharaja, including allegorical pictures of him, and others deal with Hindu subjects such as Radha and Krishna.

Prized for its highly individual style, Nainsukh's work is analysed as both intimate and spacious and extremely influential on subsequent traditions of drawing and painting in North India. Admirers of Nainsukh say his 'mature miniatures' made in Jasrota mark the beginning of Indian modernism.

Nainsukh's drawings, frequently enlivened by a monochrome wash, are said to lend the compositions a dreamlike and monochrome quality. It was a style perpetuated by his family and subsequent generations of artists.

Among the drawings attributed to Nainsukh's family is a haunting sketch from the Gita Govinda series, showing Krishna making a mark with musk on Radha's brow, which will be part of the exhibition entitled 'Drawings From Indian Courts' that is being promoted by London art dealer Sam Fogg. Two drawings by Nainsukh himself, valued at a minimum of £6000 each, will also be on show.

Other unusual items include a book on dream interpretation, illustrated with 71 drawings in a style influenced by the work of Nainsukh, executed in Kangra or Guler between 1770 and 1800. Predictions laid out in Sanskrit and accompanying illustrations are thought to be the work of an astrologer attached to the court of one of the Rajas of Kangra.

Some of the exhibition's other miniature drawings dating from the 16th to 19th centuries — and not seen in public for many years — are from the Mughal, Deccan and Rajput courts that have long been recognised by scholars and connoisseurs as an art form characterised by a particular delicacy and frequent humorous touches. They often have an immediacy that disappears in finished miniature paintings.

Some earlier drawings in the exhibition are of a female allegorical figure of the type produced by the Mughal court artist Basawan. Such figures were inspired by European engravings, and reflected the eclectic cultural milieu of the court of Emperor Akbar (r. 1556-1605 AD). Among the other Mughal drawings is a 17th century depiction of a gathering of ascetics and worshippers, including a clearly inebriated youth, at a Shiva Temple. Depictions of Hindu ascetics were a favourite subject of Mughal artists and several of the figures in this drawing appear to have been modelled on works by court artists such as Manohar and Sankar.

As with paintings, the drawings produced at the courts of the Deccani sultanates in the late-16th and 17th centuries frequently reflected a taste for the colourful and bizarre. Drawings produced for these courts, and on display in this exhibition, include a depiction of an elegantly attired prince, with a horse being led by an attendant, and a curious portrait with marbled borders of an old man holding a lamb in his hands.

In the princely kingdoms of Rajasthan, and from the 17th century onwards, there emerged local traditions of drawing and painting that were to various degrees influenced by the Mughal and Deccani court styles. The state of Bikaner was home to a refined tradition of painting and drawing which reflected the ruler's close ties to their Mughal overlords. A courtly drawing of a princess with maidservants on a terrace has been attributed to the master artist Ustad Rashid, who was active at the court of Bikaner at the turn of the 18thcentury.

Another highly distinctive local idiom of painting and drawing emerged in the kingdom of Kotah in Rajasthan. As was often the case, Kotah artists seem to have been more experimental and expressive in their drawings than paintings. Among the drawings from Kotah is a section of an unusual scroll depicting Maharoa Ram Singh's (1827-1866) artillery being pulled by a procession of camels and horses. As well as this, preparatory sketches and leaves from artists' sketchbooks, including a study entirely dedicated to feet and toes, are some of the most characterful items in the exhibition.

The political domination of the British over India in the 18th and 19th century led to the emergence of different schools of drawing and painting that adapted European subjects to local styles. A 19th century drawing from Jaipur of the orangery at Versailles is clearly an adaptation of a European print imbued with Rajasthani exuberance. A particular style of paintings and drawings made by Indian artists for British patrons, called the 'Company' style after the East India Company, is also represented in this exhibition.

A watercolour from one of the most celebrated series of Company paintings — an album of flora and fauna commissioned by the Chief Justice of Bengal and his wife, Lord and Lady Impey in Calcutta in the last quarter of the 18th century — is of particular interest. This painting, of a sunbird perched on a flowering branch, is by Shaikh Zayn al-Din, the most accomplished of the artists who worked on the album, and who had trained as a court painter in the Mughal tradition.

Also on display is a palm leaf from Orissa with text and illustrations from the Ramayana, which represents the culmination of an Indian palm leaf manuscript tradition with roots in the medieval period.

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