The Spirit of Indian Art 02

Summary

This lecture continues the history of Indian painting from about 1650 to 1900. It examines how regional courts adapted inherited Mughal techniques, how independent Deccani traditions developed, and how colonial patronage gave rise to Company painting. Its central interpretive lens is rasa: the emotional experience a painting is composed to evoke.

Rasa Theory and the Lecture’s Approach

The lecture reviews the basic elements of rasa theory:

• Sthayi bhava is the enduring emotion at a work’s core, such as love, sorrow, or heroism.
• Vibhava is the situation, setting, or stimulus that brings the emotion forth.
• Anubhava is how the emotion becomes perceptible through gestures, glances, and posture.
• When these elements work together, they produce rasa—an aesthetic experience for the viewer.

The lecture gives particular attention to shringara (romantic or erotic love), often interpreted in Vaishnava art as madhurya-bhakti: devotion to Krishna expressed through the language of romantic love. Shanta (peace) is also important, including in works that convey quiet domestic intimacy rather than religious withdrawal.

Rajput Painting: Mughal Technique Redirected

Rajput rulers and courtiers who had served at the Mughal court brought Mughal-trained painters and techniques back to their own kingdoms. Naturalistic observation, modeling, and other Mughal skills were redirected from imperial and natural history toward Hindu devotional subjects and romantic poetry.

Prominent subjects and genres included the Bhagavata Purana and Gita Govinda, both associated with Krishna and Radha; Rasikapriya, which classifies lovers and their emotional states; Ragamala paintings, which turn musical modes and moods into visual scenes; and the Ramayana, presented as devotional narrative.

Regional courts gave this shared material distinct visual styles:

• Mewar, centered on Udaipur, used strong colors, frontal figures, and architectural framing. Its artists also used continuous narrative, showing the same character more than once in a composition to depict successive moments. Sahib Din’s Ramayana, made for Rana Jagat Singh I around 1649–1653, is a major example. Battle scenes can combine vira (heroism) and raudra (fury).
• Bundi–Kota painting is more atmospheric and dynamic, with monsoon skies, hunts, and processions. In a Kota tiger hunt, movement and the hunted animals’ fear evoke bhayanaka alongside heroic action.
• Kishangarh developed a lyrical, idealized style under Sawant Singh, who wrote as Nagari Das, and the painter Nihal Chand. The celebrated Bani Thani image, from around 1750, exemplifies shringara through its refined profile and elongated eyes. The lecture notes the tradition identifying the figure as a singer-poet at court, while treating that identification cautiously.
• Marwar and Bikaner are also mentioned as distinct regional traditions.

Pahari Painting and the Recovery of a Painter Family

The Pahari (“of the hills”) tradition developed across small Himalayan foothill courts, including Basohli, Guler, and Kangra. The lecture emphasizes B. N. Goswamy’s research into the individual painters behind these works, rather than treating them only as products of anonymous “schools.”

Basohli, in the late 17th century, is characterized by vivid reds and yellows, bold figures, and large eyes. Some paintings used actual beetle-wing casings to represent jewels. A Rasamanjari series associated with Devidasa, around 1680–1695, illustrates classifications of lovers and their emotional states.

Goswamy reconstructed the family of the painter Pandit Seu and his sons Manaku and Nainsukh. He drew on painted genealogies, family records, pilgrimage registers known as bahis, inscriptions on paintings, and stylistic evidence.

• Manaku adapted Basohli’s devotional intensity with a softer, more naturalistic approach, including in a Gita Govinda series around 1730.
• Nainsukh, active into the late 18th century, worked closely with the hill ruler Raja Balwant Singh. Rather than focusing mainly on mythology, he depicted the ruler in intimate everyday scenes—reading, being groomed, examining a painting, or warming himself. The lecture reads these scenes through shanta, created by their domestic quiet and the relationship between painter and patron.

Nainsukh’s family line and artistic inheritance continued toward Kangra, reaching a mature form under Raja Sansar Chand (reigned 1775–1823). Kangra painting is described as soft, luminous, and lyrical, especially in Gita Govinda illustrations, where devotion and romantic love become a unified madhurya experience.

The key lesson is that Pahari painting can be understood more fully by tracing artists, families, and individual styles—not only by applying regional school labels.

Deccani Painting: An Independent Tradition

The Deccan Sultanates of Ahmednagar, Bijapur, and Golconda, later followed by Hyderabad, developed their own artistic traditions. The lecture stresses that these were not simply offshoots of Mughal painting. Their styles reflected connections with Iran, Turkey, and East Africa, and could feature elongated figures, jewel-like colors, and Sufi-inflected or dreamlike imagery.

At Bijapur, Ibrahim Adil Shah II (1580–1627), himself a poet and musician, wrote Kitab-i Nauras, a collection praising Hindu deities, Sufi saints, and music. A portrait of him playing the tambura is discussed as expressing music as devotion: shringara is tempered by shanta. Related Deccani painting continued in Golconda and Hyderabad through later centuries, alongside—not as a descendant of—the Rajput and Pahari traditions.

Company Painting and the Change in Patronage

From the mid-18th century, Mughal authority weakened and British power expanded. Painters sought new patrons among European administrators, naturalists, surveyors, and collectors. This gave rise to Company painting, which often prioritized documentation over the cultivation of rasa.

Common subjects included:

• Birds, animals, and plants recorded for natural history.
• Monuments and topographical views.
• Albums of Indian people, occupations, and costumes.

The style combined delicate linework associated with Mughal painting with European watercolor modeling and perspective. The lecture discusses natural-history paintings made in 1770s–1780s Kolkata for Lady Mary and Sir Elijah Impey, including works by Shaikh Zain-ud-Din, Bhavani Das, and Ram Das. It compares their close observation to the earlier animal studies of Mughal painter Ustad Mansur, while emphasizing that the later works served a different, more documentary purpose.

The lecturer presents this transition as both a loss of older literary, devotional, and symbolic purposes and a continuation of Indian painters’ technical skill under new patronage.

Chronological Outline

• c. 1100–1400: Jain devotional painting, where images serve religious merit.
• c. 1400–1550: Sultanate-era hybrid styles combining Persian manuscript conventions with earlier Indian traditions.
• 1556–1658: Mughal painting under Akbar, Jahangir, and Shah Jahan, moving from energetic historical narratives toward naturalism and formal court imagery.
• From the 1650s: Mughal-trained painters work in Rajput courts, adapting their skills to devotional and poetic subjects.
• Late 17th–early 19th centuries: Pahari painting develops through multiple courts and the lineage of Seu, Manaku, Nainsukh, and their descendants.
• 16th–19th centuries: Deccani painting follows its own independent trajectory.
• From the mid-18th century: Company painting serves new European patrons and documentary purposes.

The lecture’s closing argument is that a painting’s “spirit” is understood not just through its date or school, but through its emotional purpose, its makers and patrons, and the beliefs and experiences they shared.

Speakers and Sources Featured

• Speaker: An unnamed lecturer presenting the second lecture on The Spirit of Indian Painting.
• Book discussed: B. N. Goswamy, The Spirit of Indian Painting (2014).
• Artistic and historical figures named: Akbar, Jahangir, Shah Jahan, Sahib Din, Devidasa, Pandit Seu, Manaku, Nainsukh, Nihal Chand, Sawant Singh (Nagari Das), Ibrahim Adil Shah II, Raja Balwant Singh, Raja Sansar Chand, Ustad Mansur, Shaikh Zain-ud-Din, Bhavani Das, and Ram Das. Rana Jagat Singh I, Lady Mary Impey, and Sir Elijah Impey are also mentioned as patrons or commissioners.
• Texts and artistic genres discussed: Ramayana, Bhagavata Purana, Gita Govinda, Rasikapriya, Rasamanjari, Ragamala, Kitab-i Nauras, Bihari Satsai, and the Nal–Damayanti story.