Schools of painting

Royal patronage in Rajasthan gave rise to a profusion of distinctive painting styles that revolved around poetical and religious themes and court life. ZERIN ANKLESARIA looks at a publication offered in celebration of the 50th anniversary of its subject.

THE RAJASTHANI miniature painting originated in a very old tradition of folk art similar to the Jaina. Childlike in its directness, it had no nuances or subtlety. Strong primary colours were used without shading, perspective was unknown, and faces were not individuated. Heads were almost square with large, elongated eyes, necks were notional at best, and bodies were squat and short-limbed.

In the 17th Century, with the growing influence of the Mughal atelier at the Rajput courts, there is a refinement of style. Colours are muted, figures become slender and graceful, and facial features are sharply defined. A long neck is now emblematic of female beauty and stylised portraiture comes into vogue.

The court painting is not as homogeneous as the title of Marg's new book seems to suggest, since the term covers 10 kingdoms and many minor principalities. Bikaner was served by painters of one family for 200 years. Their style has a strong Deccani element, due perhaps to the lengthy sojourns of their rulers at Bijapur as viceroys of the Mughal emperors. As Catherine Glynn shows, three modes can be seen in Bikaner miniatures, often in the same painting. Members of the royal family are depicted in the Mughal manner, on horseback and engaged in hawking, a favourite imperial sport. Sometimes the monarch's head has a halo, a Mughal emblem of kingship and semi-divinity. However, he is set in a Rajasthani landscape depicted in the Deccani style. There is no attempt at spatial recession, but the foreground, middleground and background are painted in three layers, one on top of the other. This quaint convention is a defining feature of both the Bikaner and Bijapur schools.

The more individualistic work came from the smaller States, where the folk element was stronger and the lone artist could follow his own fancy. From tiny Uniara we have a lavishly illustrated manuscript of the Hitopadesha, remarkable for both style and content. Illustrated books of fables, common in the Mughal tradition, were rare in the Hindu ones, yet here we have no less than 133 paintings done by a single artist, Dhano, in the Jaipur mode. In each, the setting consists of gently rolling yellow hills overpainted with green, dominated by a majestic tree. A grey stream, covered with fine white lines to suggest ripples, runs along the bottom, and there is an abundance of local flora and fauna. In a charming example the deer makes friends with the crow, the mouse and the tortoise, demonstrating the adage that united we stand but divided we fall easy prey to our enemies. In a time of deep dissension among the Rajput clans, when Uniara was harried by Jaipur on the one hand and the Marathas on the other, it made a pertinent political statement.

Ghanerao was another little kingdom with a disproportionately rich art heritage. Painters from the courts of Mewar, Bikaner and Jodhpur settled here working in clearly differentiated styles. The Jodhpur mode is bolder, less refined, than the other two as we see in a splendid picture of a nobleman with ladies in a banana grove. The huge trees dwarf the human figures but are related to them, the stiff, formalised leaves mimicking the heavily defined drapes of the women's clothing.

Rajasthani art, compared to the Mughal, has far more diversity. One notices also a refreshing refusal to take itself too seriously. At one end is a substantial body of devotional work, highly abstruse in nature. Apart from scenes of worship, there are unusually large paintings from Jodhpur based on yogic metaphysics. Debra Diamond chooses one of them as paradigmatic. Its subject - the universe within a man - is common to the Hindu, Jain and Buddhist traditions.

A siddha stands on a tortoise, his eyes crossed in meditation. His fleshy figure, four feet high, has horizontal bands of tiny paintings below the hips, depicting white-walled palaces in full perspective, creating spatial vistas. In his body are contained the 14 worlds of gods, humans and demons, and his face has the sun and moon on either cheek. His beard forms clouds and the hair from his ears become mountains. Done in shimmering gold on a dark blue background, this is a strikingly dramatic representation of microcosmic man. Here too, there appears to be a political element, since the huge folios are too cumbersome for an individual to open and admire, and collective viewing could create unity in a court riven by intrigues.

In sharp contrast is the satirical art of Kishangarh, full of exuberant scenes of low life, and not-so-edifying scenes of high life too. There are parallels in Mughal art, but not on this scale. In a painting ironically titled "Mir Pahlavan Hunting", the "champion" rides a travesty of a horse with tiny head, stumpy legs and sausage-shaped body. The saddle has slipped on to the neck of the long-suffering animal and Mir, his clothing in disarray, drops his dagger, quiver, powder-flask and one slipper in his headlong course.

A cross section of 18th Century life appears in these miniatures - corpulent vendors and pandits, an obscenely fat bridegroom, and a mountain of a woman advancing menacingly on four men who jeer at her while keeping carefully out of reach. Outside a hermitage a huge man is being soundly thrashed by a thin one, and in a bizarre scene two women kneel in a face-to-face confrontation on a terrace, quarrelling furiously over a fish, holding either end of it between their teeth and pulling in opposite directions.

The more trenchant satire was directed at the Mughals. In a riotous harem scene, an old, corpulent nobleman, sartorially identified as Muslim, is so sozzled that he can barely keep his eyes open. A bevy of lustful women, also drunk, try to prod him into wakefullness as others indulge in "the friendly vices of the zenana", as the author coyly puts it. Meanwhile a fracas has broken out as three women set upon their victim, who wields a musical instrument in self-defence as they kick, scratch and pull his hair. Here is a painting remarkable for its frank licentiousness and raw energy.

The latter is perhaps the distinctive feature of the Rajsthani style as a whole. In the well-known picture of Akbar directing an elephant trapping, the foreground is divided neatly into diagonal segments while Akbar is centred at the back. Its Rajput counterpart is a narrative painting full of movement, with baby elephants frolicking with their mothers in a pool as the leader of the herd steps out to confront the trappers, and is then captured and finally led away. Even the trees, rocks and vegetation are charged with a tumultuous energy lacking in the more sedate Mughal miniature.

This is a book of exceptional charm, redolent of history, vibrant with the life and colour of a picturesque land in a turbulent age. For those who love Rajasthan, it is an absolute must.

Court Painting In Rajasthan, Edited by Andrew Topsfield, Marg Publications, Rs. 1,950.

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