Wonder of the Age: Master Painters of India 1100-1900

Author: John Guy & Jorrit Britschgi

Publisher: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York and Mapin,

Pages: 224

Price: Rs 2,100

Till not so very long ago, an accepted belief about Indian art in the West was that miniature painting was the work of unsung craftsmen who laboured to create images in keeping with the prevalent tastes of their times and patrons. Over the years, scholars of India’s grand painting traditions have minutely examined texts and art to challenge the assumption that Indian art is largely anonymous, to identify Indian painters and to attribute their works to them.

, a supplement to the exhibition with the same name at the Met, ably carries this movement forward. Apart from exploring eight centuries of Indian painting — from the time it originated as interior designs in “palaces and places of worship” and as illustrations in religious and secular texts to the late 1800s when enterprising painters would colour monochromatic portraits by hand — the curators of Indian art at the Met and of Indian painting at the Rietberg in Zurich, John Guy and Jorrit Britschgi, respectively, have included comprehensive essays in this volume to accompany each distinctive phase of art.

This volume focuses on almost 200 works by 40 identifiable artists, starting with palm leaves in a Buddhist monastery that had a manuscript inscribed on them and finishing with two huge paintings, influenced by European models, that were made for the Maharana of Udaipur. Guy and Britschgi divided the exhibition and this book into six sections, with titles such as “Early Hindu-Sultanate Painting, 1500-1575” and “Late Mughal Painting and the Renaissance of the Hindu Courts, 1650-1730”. The works of entire families of artists have been chronicled; some of these families were patronized by successive generations of emperors. Masur, whom Jahangir called Nadir al-Asr (Wonder of the Age), was known for his detailed portraits of reptiles and birds. Manaku and Nainsukh were brothers who learnt their craft from their father; yet, their works differed greatly. The variety of art produced within families becomes symbolic of the sheer scale of the artworks chronicled in this book. It is a work of explosive originality and colour, a meandering and convoluted saga that ends with the introduction of photography in the late 19th century.

Left is an extraordinary work by Farrukh Beg, dated 1615. Inspired by European engravings of ‘Dolor’ (sorrow or melancholia), it depicts Beg’s own vision of an ageing Sufi. Top is an opaque watercolour on paper by Shivalal, showing Maharana Fateh Singh’s hunting party crossing a river during a flood. Bottom left is a mural from the Sumtsek chapel in Ladakh’s Alchi monastery, dated 1200. It is symbolic of the richness of the medieval mural painting tradition. Bottom right is a page from the Chawand Ragamala series, dated 1605, in which a woman longingly waits for her lover in a luxurious bedchamber.

NAYANTARA MAZUMDER

Published on March2, 2012

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