Painting the Mughal Experience

This is a comprehensive yet detailed account of Mughal Painting. Drawing on various primary and secondary sources, the author presents Mughal painting in a thematic rather than ruler-centric manner. He provides a vivid account of the Mughal atelier, as well as the work of individual artists, and examines the various influences in the creation of this magnificent genre of sixteenth-century narrative art. Specific art-forms such as portraiture, the depiction of
nature, and the illustration of margins of manuscripts and minatures which are considered significant facets of Mughal painting are minutely studied. Technical skills, motifs, and the symbolism, which is
characteristic of this period are also discussed extensively. Two important chapters discuss the interesting and rather unprecedented phenomenon of inscribing the names of the artist on the works executed by them, and the influence of European Renaissance art on Mughal painting, respectively. The author provides fresh information on primary sources in the light of new approaches. Long-held opinions by established art historians on the historicity and other aspects of these minatures are also
questioned, and sometimes even refuted in the course of describing the various aspects of the genre.