visions of mughal india - The Ashmolean Museum

VISIONS OFMUGHAL INDIA Detail of Elephant’sheadKota, Rajasthan,c.1700–10Rajasthani PaintingFurther creative reinterpretations of Mughal models are foundamong the Rajasthani works which comprise more than a thirdof the Hodgkin collection. Among the many local court styles ofRajasthan, Hodgkin has valued above all the animated elephantdrawings and paintings from Kota. From the mid-seventeenthcentury onward, Kota elephant and hunting pictures wereunrivalled in their energy of line and sense of mass in motion. Nearlya century later, the Kota artists’ jungle landscapes, turbulent lakesand swaying bamboo clumps still seethe with life, as in MadhoSingh hunting boar. Such compositions derive in part from distantMughal models, and were also reworked repeatedly in large-scalepalace mural compositions by artists at the neighbouring courts ofBundi and Kota. Yet in the hands of a master painter they could stillbe recreated afresh. This ever renewed creative impulse appearsfinally at Kota in the mid-nineteenth century under Ram Singh II,as in the exuberant scene of his wedding at Udaipur in 1851.Elsewhere in Rajasthan, Hodgkin has favoured works from aselect group of major and minor courts. There are strong courtand hunting scenes from Udaipur, capital of the ancient dynastyof Mewar. Dating from c.1700–50, they were painted for theinnovative patron Amar Singh II and his grandson Jagat Singh II. Detail from MaharaoRam Singh’s marriageprocession at UdaipurKota, Rajasthan, c.1851At the minor courts – lesser kingdoms in the Rajput hierarchy,or else small baronial estates (thikanas) – the weight of dynastichistory and court protocol was less oppressive, and paintersworking there could improvise or experiment more freely. AtKishangarh, the prevalent poetic cult of Krishna and his consortRadha led to expressive stylisations of figures and faces with acharacteristic elongated eye, as in the fine study of a singing-girlwith a green tanpura.10www.ashmolean.org