preface
T
he forty eminent painters chosen for this exhibition are among the greatest in the history of Indian painting. Each could lay claim to the honorific titles bestowed by Mughal emperors on their most prized painters: Nadir al-Asr, “ Wonder of the Age,” and Nadir al-Zaman, “Wonder of the Times.” These titles were awarded by the emperor Jahangir to his two favorite artists, Ustad (master) Mansur and Abu’l Hasan, respectively. Such special recognition was in keeping with an Iranian tradition of awarding honorific titles to the most gifted artists of the day. Variants of these titles were awarded in the intense, somewhat hothouse atmosphere of the imperial Mughal workshops. Other eminent painters, such as Mir Sayyid ‘Ali, ‘Abd al-Samad, and Daswanth, were similarly esteemed, as was the famed Shiraz painter Khajah Abduccamad with the honorific Shirinqalam (Sweet Pen.)1 Abu’l Fazl, biographer of the emperor Akbar, wrote in the A’in-i Akbari: More than a hundred painters have become famous masters of the art, whilst the number of those who approach perfection, or those who are middling, is very large. . . . It would take too long to describe the excellence of each. My intention is “to pluck a flower from every meadow, an ear from every sheaf.” 2
Like Akbar, his son Jahangir boasted of his role as a guiding patron, nurturing his artists’ development. In the case of the master painter Abu’l Hasan, Jahangir recorded in his personal memoirs: “I have always considered it my duty to give him much patronage, and from his youth until now I have patronized him so that his work has reached the level it has.” 3 The signatures of the artists of course speak a very different language, reflecting the assumed humility required when addressing the emperor. They assume such epithets as “servant,” “least of the unworthy,” or “slave.” It is telling that in Abu’l Hasan’s Accession of Jahangir (No. 29), 8
Figure 1. Border illuminations with a self-portrait and portraits of the painters Govardhan and Bishandas (detail), by Daulat, ca. 1610. Golestan Palace Library, Tehran
he signed his work on the shovel used in cleaning up elephant dung as an expression of his humility. With few exceptions, the painters left no self-portraits. This makes the rare appearance of a self-portrait in imperial dardar (audience) scenes all the more remarkable, and it alludes to those artists, such as Payag and Balchand, as having a special relationship at court that allowed them to be admitted into the inner circle (No. 38). The Rajput patrons were less effusive but nonetheless prized their finest painters. In the case of the Guler ruler Raja Balwant Singh and his court painter Nainsukh, the patron and artist clearly had a special relationship, as is witnessed by Raja Balwant Singh viewing a painting presented by the artist (No. 83). The appearance of artist’s portraits and especially self-portraits as early as the 1570s in Akbari studio circles marks a moment of change when painters were permitted to indulge in depicting themselves. Keshav Das’s remarkable self-portrait as the poor petitioner is a defining moment (No. 25). This publication and the exhibition it accompanies challenge the conventional wisdom that extols the anonymity of Indian art, instead emphasizing how the combined tools of connoisseurship and inscriptional evidence can reveal the identities of both individual artists and their oeuvres through an analysis of style. The
