With
a long heredity, Rajasthani painting continued a tradition and the conservative
fashion remained practically unaffected except for a slight inevitable Mughal
influence at a later stage. But the Mughal paintings which were essentially
rich in Persian traditions soon imbibed the charm of Indian tradition. While
the Mughal paintings were aristocratic, individualistic, strong in their
character of portraiture, being fostered and appreciated only by royalty and
noblemen at court, as they were reflections of their personal glory and vanity,
the Rajput paintings were more in tune with the throbbing life around, simple,
with a direct appeal to the peasant and the common folk, sublime in theme,
universal in appeal, deeply religious and mystic, true interpreters of phases
of nature in her moods in spring and in rain and emotions in man, bird and
beast with a universal love for both the animate and the inanimate, the deer,
the dove, the peacock, the monkey, cows and calves, trees and creepers, lovely
brooks, shady bowers, moisture-laden clouds showering rain-drops with circling
cranes, the melodies personified attracting even the beasts and reptiles to listen
to the songs, or the lovers in separation or in union; in short, themes whose
appeal goes direct to the heart of peasant and nobleman alike. As has already
been remarked, Rajasthani painting and painting from the hilly region, Pahari,
closely knit by affinities that make them almost a single major school, show
the least trace of foreign admixture, while Mughal art betrays it most.
It
is just a late version of an early story repeated. Kushana sculpture in the
Yamuna-Ganga doab is the indigenous type, with only an occasional flash of
foreign influence, while the Kushana art in the Gandhara region imbibes more
from the West, though both these schools were patronised in the same empire and
almost by the same kings. Similarly, under the Mughal empire, art in the hills
and the desert, that continued the early tradition in sequestered spots,
undisturbed by Mughal magnificence, developed the Indian traditions untainted,
while contemporary Mughal art at court imbibed quite a bit of the Persian
tradition, though under the catholic spirit of Akbar and the liberal
connoisseurship of Jehangir, the art flowered into a peculiarly charming new
school having an essentially Indian flavour with a strong Persian bias. The
Hindu spirit of religious fervour and dedication is best seen in the series of
Rajasthani and Pahari miniatures illustrating the sports of baby Krishna, the
episodes from Rama's life, the complex epic of the Mahabharata, the loves of
Nala and Damayanti, the triumph of Chandi or Durga, the musical modes the main
and subsidiary ragas and raginis, personified in picturesque fashion, the
emotions, the longing of the separated wife, Proshitabhartrika, the pride of
the wronged wife, Khandita, the eager expectant wife, Vasakasajjika, the damsel
hurrying to the place of tryst, Abhisarika, the shy coy bride, Mugdha, and so
forth. The Baramasa scenes with magnificent representations of the rains and
spring, the former dark with rain-laden clouds and the latter bright with
gardens and woods lit up with flowers in bloom, are all typical of the genius
and outlook of the Rajasthani painter, who continued the tradition of the past,
pleasing himself in this presentation of a maze of themes already executed by
numerous predecessors but nevertheless still as fresh as ever in their charm
and inviting depiction over and over again. It was very rarely that the artist
individualized himself and put his stamp by inscribing his name. The themes
survived. The glory of depiction is there but the artist effaced himself. As
Anandavardhana would put it for literature, the same Mayas of the greatest
poets like Valmiki, Vyasa and Kalidasa could yet be repeated by other poets
drawing from the same sweet source-garden and portrayed to appear as fresh and
lovely and glorious as in the originals by an artistic turn given individually
by every great poet who utilized them. The Rajasthani and Pahari artists
exactly followed this procedure and produced some of the loveliest creations
with the brush.
Mughal
art, on the other hand, being individualistic, glorified particular themes,
specified aristocracy, peeped into the inner revelry of the harem, the
magnificence of the court, the delightful wild bouts, depicted elephant and
camel fights that appealed to the emperor, scenes of hunting, toilet, dress and
decoration of coquettish damsels; and the very spirit of emulation in the court
and the patronage of the emperors and the nobles drew out the stamp of the
personality of each artist, which accounts for the signed examples of painting
so profusely met with in the Mughal series.
The
various sub-schools of the Rajasthani School can be distinguished by their
peculiar characteristics such as the Mewar, Bundi, Jaipur, Bikaner and Jodhpur with
close affinities to the Central Indian Mandu (Malwa) School, which in turn owes
much to the Jain School of Gujarat. The Mewar School presents an early
untainted phase of Rajasthani mode unlike schools like Bikaner and Bundi that
absorbed Mughal influence. The pointed nose, large eyes and angular features of
figures, the general arrangement of browns and reds, and the wavy skyline in
the Mewar paintings recall influence from Gujarat manuscripts and from the very
early Rajasthani School of which the illustrations of Chaurapanchasika from the
N.C. Mehta collection are an excellent example. The Kishengarh School with
peculiarly long and mango-shaped oblique like Radha and Krishna is another
distinct school from the Rajasthan area. A peculiarly religious and almost
repetitive school is noticed from Nathadvara.
The
Pahari branch has its most graceful paintings in the Kangra, Guler, Chamba,
Nurpur, Garhwal and Jammu Schools and a strong folk element is seen in the Kulu
and Basohli Schools. This was a period of great renaissance of
vernacular literature when the influence of Kabir, Vidyapati, Umapati,
Chandidas, Tulsidas, Kesavadasa and even late writers like Bihari Lal and
Jaswant Singh had probably a greater hold than the more difficult and not so
easily accessible Sanskrit poets. Thus, the Ramayana of Tulsidas and the
Rasikapriya of Kesavadasa had probably a greater appeal and are actually the
source of the themes of this unsophisticated sweet utterance of folk-art, a
prakrita vernacular art to be distinguished from a classical samskrita art that
went in handy with classical Sanskrit literature of an earlier period.
Writer Name: C. Sivaramamurti
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