The closest continuation of the
pre-Mughal style appears in the boldly simplified designs and colour schemes
used in the schools of Malwa and Bundclkhand. In a typical ragatnala picture,
Bhairava raga is depicted in the form of Krishna conversing with a lady in a pavilion
flanked by stylised flowering trees. The primitive expressive power of this
style is scarcely affected by the Popular Mughal influence that was reaching
the Rajasthani courts. It may be contrasted with a version of the same subject,
in this case more correctly conceived: as Shiva (of whom Bhairava, 'the
Terrible: is an epithet), who sits under a flayed elephant skin in a royal
palace attended by maids. This picture belongs to a series painted at Chunar,
near Bermes, in 1591 by artists trained iii Akbar's studio. Its judicious use
of figural modelling and spatial recession as well as the decorative tile-work
and arabesque borders of the painting are all Akbari features. The series must
have belonged at an early date to the rulers of Bundi, whose imperial service
brought them at one stage to Chunar, for its iconography established a norm for
later Bundi ragamalas. At other courts manuscript illustration was
similarlymodified by a more dilute Popular Mughal influence; (A version of
Kakubha ragini, personified as a lovelorn lady whose charms pacify the wild
blackbuck, is composed in an archaic series of registers and combines
old-fashioned landscape conventions with elegantly attenuated figure drawing
and a row of stylised Mughal flowers at the top.
Even at the desert-locked court
of Bikaner, where in the late 17th century migrant Muslim artist families had
worked in a Mughal-derived style with some Deccani elements, Rajput conventions
re-appeared within one or two generations. A picture of the autumn month of Karttik,
from a Barahmasa series illustrating the activities of noble lovers during the
twelve months of the year, displays a formalised composition, elongated figures
and vague spatial relationships. A noble and lady stand before a pavilion with
a bed-chamber; another bed is prepared on the roof. In the back-ground a couple
play at chaupar, men bathe and women draw auspicious rangoli patterns on the
ground:
The Ranas of Mewar, who had
long been regarded as the premier ruling family and the custodians of Rajput
honour, had been the last to capitulate to the Mughals. During the 17th
century they continued their earlier traditions of manuscript illustration in a
bright and forceful style modified by some Popular Mughal influence. But from
the early i8th century the Udaipur artists' best work consisted of ambitious
and original paintings of court life: portraits, durbars, processions, hunts,
religious festivals and zenana scenes, often of unusually large size and full
of anecdotal detail. Some of the better compositions made use of architectural
settings adapted from the palace buildings at Udaipur. Individual portraits of
the Mughal type, showing an isolated figure seated or standing in profile, were
often wooden, but a curious study of an obese courtier in a striped pink pyjama
has a keen satirical edge.
The dissolution of Mughal power
in the 18th century was matched by a similar decline at the courts of
Rajasthan. From the 1730s they were repeatedly overrun by the Marathas from the
south, who brought about a political and economic chaos that lasted until the
establishment of British suzerainty in 1818. Jaipur, which had been founded
close to Amber by the distinguished astronomer Raja Sawai Jai Singh
(1693-1743), is said to have reached depths of turpitude and intrigue
exceptional even in an age of general decadence. But painting continued under
its own inherent momentum. The Jaipur artists were much influenced by the hard
contemporary style of Delhi and Lucknow. Even so, a hackneyed subject of a lady
at her toilet could be transformed into a classically Rajput image by the
accentuated outline drawing of the face and figure and the contrast of
unmodelled flesh and background areas with the detail of jewellery, textile
patterns and a flower gardefik A more ebullient late phase of Rajasthani
painting occurred at Kotah under Rao Ram Singh (1827-65), who is seen passing
in procession through a bazaar, entertained as he rides by a nautch girl
supported on his elephant's tusks If this picture lacks the kinetic force of
the earlier elephant fight, it still has much charm and panache. Already,
however, a harsh synthetic green colour is in use. During the second half of
the-19th century traditional painting either succumbed or was
radically changed by the impact of Western techniques and the sensational art
of photography.
Writer – Andrew Topsfield
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