The Mughal Emperors, who ruled India during the late 16th to 18th centuries contributed a different variety of painting with Persian inspiration called Mughal painting. Mughal emperor Humayun contributed a lot for this painting, as he brought two famous Persian artists during his return to India after his expel and adorned in his court. But this painting reached the zenith of its glory during the reign of Emperor Akbar. The two Persian artists, who adorned Emperor Akbar’s court made many masterpiece paintings based on our epics like Ramayana, Mahabharatha and also on Persian epics. They were also successful in portraying landscapes, animal stories and portraits. These two Persian artists trained a lot of people who contributed a lot for the development of this art. Notable artists who are responsible for the development of this art during the Mughal period are Mir Syid Ali and Abdus Samad the Persian artists who introduced and adorned the court of Humayon as well as Akbar, then Miskin, Baswan Lal, Daswanth and Kesu Das -remarkable painters during the reign of Akbar, Jahangir and Shah Jahan. But unfortunately during the first half of the eighteenth century Mughal trained artists, for their fame moved to Rajput Courts. During the reign of Aurangazeb this rich art form started declining and during the reign of Shah Alam II this art form completely declined.
Fortunately, now some artists in Rajasthan mainly at Jaipur have understood the importance of this particular style of South Asian painting and they have started efforts to develop this extravagant art. Though, the new works on mughal paintings are only imitations of the original works we can be happy as efforts have started to develop this art. Thanks to the new artists who are striving hard to develop some classical methods for this mughal painting so as to make it a billion dollar art form. Let us pray and hope that this art form passes from generation to generation and develop as a unique art form.
Following are the free mughal painting ebooks or pdf tutorials available in world wide web.
- The trouble image: An essay upon Mughal Painting by Eric Schroeder (USA)
- Mughal Painting under Akabar the Great by Maurice S Dimand
- Seeing Eye-To-Eye with Mughal Miniatures: Some Observations on the Outward Gazing Figure in Mughal Art By Gregory Minissale
- Indian Miniatures of the Mughal Court by Amine: Oleada
- Mughal School
- Mughal Art & the Taj Mahal