From the
Publisher
This volume follows Mughal Painters and Their Work-A
Biographical Survey and Comprehensive Catalogue (Oxford
University Press, New Delhi, 1994), the first comprehensive
book of reference on the work of nearly 200 Mughal painters;
and has been conceived to provide readers much more
information on the Mughal painting through the contribution of
individual aster painters. Need not say ample information is
available about the artists of the Mughal atelier
(sixteenth-seventeenth centuries). Yet, to date, except for
some articles on a few painters, no book has been published on
individual artist.
Ustad Mansur, a keen observer of nature endowed with almost
Euclidean intellect, deserved a more detailed study to
re-evaluate his merit as an artist whose achievement in
naturalistic portraiture of a larger number of species from
the world of flora and fauna has remained unsurpassed till
today. Our attempt is to enter into the very creative process
of this great Mughal painter; to relive in his times and
environment, in order to discover real Mansur. The whole
panorama of Mansur's portraits of birds, animals and flowers
set in marvelously and uniquely laid background represents, in
his true spirit and characteristics, the very quintessence of
nature's endless variety of creation and beauty.
Part I provides historical and artistic context in which
Ustad Mansur worked. Information about him has been gleaned
from original texts (principally Persian historical sources),
supplemented by the evidence of artist's own work. Part II
comprises the plate section of representative eighteen
miniatures that illustrate our painter's style and his
specialization in painting. The appendix further enhances the
value of this work since it provides correct rendering of
contemporary inscriptions and determines genuine signatures
and contemporary ascriptions.
The volume is richly illustrated with a large number of
black-and-white and colour illustrations. These illustrate the
art and style of Ustad Mansur Nadir u'1 'Asr (Unequalled of
the Age), the most illustrious naturalist painter of India. It
will naturally be of interest to students of art and natural
history. It is also recommended to persons curious to know
about the Mughal times.
It is hoped that other volumes on individual Mughal
painters will follow; and monographs on their lives and work
with a critical evaluation will be available.
Professor Som Prakash Verma (b. 1942), an art
historian, at present at the Centre of Advanced Study,
Department of History, Aligarh Muslim University, has written
two books and has also contributed to scholarly and art
journals. His Art and Material Culture in the Paintings of
Akbar's Court published in 1978 may rightly be said to be the
first authentic treatment of art as a source of history by an
Indian scholar. His another volume, Mughal Painters and Their
Work-A Biographical Survey and Comprehensive Catalogue, has
been published in 1994 by the Oxford University Press, New
Delhi. This is a very important work of reference,
indispensable for students of Mughal painting. He has edited
Art and Culture (Felicitation Volume in Honour of Professor S.
Nurul Hasan) jointly with Professor Ahsan Jan Qaisar (1993);
and is the Guest-Editor of the Marg Volume: Flora and Fauna in
Mughal Art (forthcoming).
Professor Verma is a practicing artist as well. He is the
recipient of two prestigious awards by the Indian Academy of
Fine Arts, Amritsar (1981) and the Academy of fine Art,
Calcutta (1982); and his paintings are known in the art
galleries, government and private art collections in India and
abroad.
The exhibitions of historical miniatures (reproductions)
prepared by him: (1) Everyday Life and Work in Mughal India
(1984), (2) Medieval Technology-Illustrations form Indian Art
(1984), (3) Wild Life in Mughal Painting (1985), (4) Medieval
India Architecture (1986), and (5) The Life of Akbar as
Illustrated in Contemporary Miniatures (1992) provide
invaluable data on Indian society, culture, art, architecture
and technology. At present these are lodged in the Seminar
Library, Department of History (AMU).
In 1986-7, Professor Verma worked at the Freer Gallery of
Art, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D. C. as a Fulbright
Fellow.
Author's Description
The Mughals invaded, conquered and settled down to enamour
Hindustan as their own. Exalted by a sense of prowess and
possession they relegated the memories of their land of origin
to the confines of occasional nostalgic references only. They
swore by their sword, ruled by the dint of their merit, built
with passion and verve massive structures of wonder and
beauty, encouraged arts and crafts of the finest quality,
rewarded and patronized every outstanding talent of their
realm. Under their unique patronage such a philosophy of life
and action flourished that with its maturity it acquired a
distinct culture, so much so, that it carved for itself a
permanent niche in history. Emperors Akbar, Jahangir and Shah
Jahan are triumvirate high peaks of this imposing range of
culture. The best in anything hardly eluded their notice and
recognition, notwithstanding fine art. Their meticulous
historical sensibility is expressed in the records they left
of their lives, times and events. They called upon their
commissioned artists to illustrate the recorded descriptions
with paint and brush with all exactitude, and rare beauty.
Besides, they instructed the artists to paint portraits of the
royalty, and all that lured them into wonderment of the
strange and the beautiful. The fantastic collections of these
records that they left behind, in spite of the time wrought
destruction of a great many, are indelible and an infallible
source of history of that great many, are indelible and an
infallible source of history of that great period of the
Mughals. Their ateliers produced works of art that is known
the world over, for its exclusiveness, originality and
finesse, and later baptized as Mughal school of art by the
critics.
In this wonderful throbbing age of high action,
Mansur, the
great painter of natural history, received recognition of rare
excellence in Jahangir's atelier, and left his impress to
continue through Shah Jahan's period and later. Jahangir, the
astute critic of art, conferred upon him the singular title of
Nadir u'l 'Asr for his perfection and achievement.
Great scholars of art history, both here and abroad, have
written volumes on the Mughal school of art. International
collection and galleries have separate sections devoted to
pictures of this school. However, in Mansur's case, it seems
that he deserved a more detailed study than what has so far
been done, in order to fill up certain, perhaps, inadvertent
lacunas, and also, to re-evaluate his merit as an artist whose
fame and achievement in naturalistic portraiture of a large
number of species from the world of fauna and flora has
remained unsurpassed till today.
Mansur is an artistic phenomenon, a creative event of the
highest order within the imposed limitations and conventions
of the Mughal atelier. He, as a keen observer of nature
endowed with almost Euclidean intellect, was also capable of
lending certain emotional undertones, wherever the opportunity
was, to his purely objective studies, and thereby, produced an
art that is at once an admiration of the zoologist, and the
art lovers and critics simultaneously. He is a high priest of
natural history in art, penetrating the very life of nature
with supreme imagination, as well as, unflinching objectivity
through the vast multiplicity of Nature's wonderful forms, he
saw an inexhaustible range of individuality, variations of
moods, myriad colours, and a vibrant continuity. And, the
discipline of his mental faculties obliged him to reproduce
those forms with the precision of a microscopic vision.
Our exploration is an attempt to enter into the very
creative process of this great Mughal painter; to relive in
his times and environment, in order to discover a fresh
perspective for the appreciation of his work, and in the light
of which, try to see those possible factors and mechanics of
approach that are responsible for such astounding results. The
exercise may, in some cases, involve a re-evaluation of some
already existing notions and comments on Mansur, of course,
without ever intending to be uncharitable.
In view of the scanty evidential material available on the
subject, and the misfortune of not being able to find any
continuity in the sequence of Mansur's works because of the
complete loss of a large number of them, the difficulties
faced have not been very easy to surmount. Besides, the
protracted exercise of scanning through a large number of such
works which are either copies of the originals, or, pictures
with faked ascriptions and forged signature, or, even those
which are altogether unascribed but attributed to Mansur, has
posed problems which could lead, for lack of alertness, into
pitfalls of wrong judgement and erroneous interpretations. To
avoid this, I have depended only on those authentic pictures
of Mansur which have come out as such after a thorough process
of check and recheck, and confirmed with the help of direct
and indirect sources. My sole aim in this study has been to
remain objective, and avoid, to the best of my efforts, all
temptations to hazard interpretations and observations on
hypothetical conjectures or unanalytical intuitions.
For transliteration of inscriptions used in the text, I
have exclusively followed the system of spelling and
diacritical marks adopted by Steingass in his Comprehensive
Persian-English Dictionary.
The possibilities of this present work occurred to me
during my preparation of the volume Mughal Painter and
Their Work - A Biographical Survey and Comprehensive
Catalogue (Oxford University Press, 1994) which includes a
fair amount of information on such material as: biographical
records, lists of signed, ascribed and attributed works, and
notes on styles, of as many as over two hundred painters of
the Mughal school (16th-17th centuries). The magnitude of the
problems faced in the preparation of it, demanding vigorous
search and continuous scrutiny of the facts, could only be
significantly mitigated with the aid of right research
methods, and patient inculcation of academic discipline, the
training of which I received under the guidance of Professor
Irfan Habib. With the same cast of y mind I ventured to give
shape and form to my study of Mansur. In this endeavour also,
Professor Habib's encouragement and inspiration had always
been coming forth ungrudgingly whenever I needed them. For all
this, I owe him a deep sense of gratitude.
I am no less indebted to Professor M. A. Alvi and Professor
A. J. Qaisar for their sincere and friendly support, and keen
interest in my work. Their patient and enlightening
discussions on research problems, and valuable suggestions
throughout proved to be my mainstay in the preparation of the
book.
I am thankful to Professor Shireen
Moosvi; Professor Iqbal
Husain and Dr. Mohammad Afzal Khan who assisted me in the
interpretations of the Persian inscriptions; and to Professor
S. K. Saxena and Professor Wajahat Husain of the Department of
Botany, Aligarh Muslim University, and Mr. Ambar Habib, an
avid bird-watcher, for their help in identifying some of the
species of birds and flowers, painted by Mansur.
I am sincerely grateful to Mr. P. K. Ghosh for editing the
text of this book, and giving many useful suggestions of
highly critical nature on the aesthetic aspects, which proved
to be very helpful in the evaluation of Mansur's paintings.
The Ful-bright Fellowship, awarded tome in 1987, enabled me
to visit museums and art galleries of New York, Washington and
Baltimore, and to have rare pleasure of working with Dr. Milo
C. Beach, and discussions on the subject with Professor S. C.
Welch and Dr. Esin Atil. This work could have remained bereft
of much of its originality had not the opportunity to study
Mughal miniatures in the cherished collections in the United
States come my way.
My acknowledgements and special thanks are due to the
authorities of the National Museum, New Delhi; Sawai Man Singh
II Museum, Jaipur; Indian Museum, Calcutta; State Museum,
Luchnow; Prince of Wales Museum of Western India, Bombay;
India Office Library, London; British Museum and Library,
London; Royal Library, Windsor; Victoria and Albert Museum,
London, for their cooperation.
I should like to thank Ms. Lily
Kecskes, Head Librarian,
Freer Gallery of Art and Arthur M. Sackler Gallery,
Washington, who gave me ungrudging assistance in using these
splendid libraries. Thanks are due to Mr. M. H. Razvi
(Librarian), Mr. Baqar Ali Khan and Mr. Masitullah at the
Maulana Azad Library, Aligarh Muslim University and Mr. Aijaz
M. Khan, Arshad Ali, M. Yusuf Siddiqi and Noor Ahmad at the
Research Library, Centre of Advanced Study, Department of
History, Aligarh Muslim University, where most of my work was
given shape and completed.
Mr. Ishrat Alam's contribution by way of checking and
comparing the typescript to its final shape must need be
mentioned here especially.
Last, but not the least, my gratitude is due to all the
members of my family and Dr. Pushpa Prasad, my fiend and
colleague, and her daughter Dr. Smriti Prasad, for their
patient cooperation and continuous encouragements.
Contents
|
Author's Note |
7 |
|
List of Abbreviations |
11 |
|
List of Illustrations |
15 |
|
PART I |
|
| 1 |
Introduction |
19 |
| 2 |
Historical Background |
34 |
| 3 |
Mansur |
40 |
|
3.1 Early Phase |
42 |
|
3.2 Specialization |
46 |
| 4 |
Ascriptions: Artist's Signatures and Emperor's
Autographs |
57 |
| 5 |
Major Characteristics of Mansur's Art |
60 |
| 6 |
Copies of Mansur's Originals and Forged
Attributions |
66 |
| 7 |
Conclusion |
79 |
|
Notes |
83 |
|
PART II |
|
|
Notes on Plates (I-XVIII) |
109 |
|
Appendix: Paintings by Mansur |
124 |
|
(1) Ascribed and Signed Works |
124 |
|
(2) Suggested Attributions and Forged Miniatures |
139 |
|
Glossary |
151 |
|
Select Bibliography |
153 |
|
Index |
162 |
