Charm and opulence in Mughal India

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Katie Campbell succumbs to the allure of the east at the British Library’s current show, ‘Mughal India: Art, Culture and Empire’

The British library is displaying its extensive collection of Mughal works in a glorious exhibition of manuscripts and paintings.  While most shows concentrate on the first six ‘great’  Mughal emperors, this exhibition covers the full range of Mughal rulers and their 350-year collective reign.  It also features important images of the Turkic tribal leader Timur, forerunner of the Mughals, who first invaded India at the end of the 14th century, providing his descendants with an example of courtly culture and lavish patronage of the arts – particularly the arts of calligraphy, literature and garden making.  

The Mughal Empire began, in earnest, in 1524 when the teenage Barbur emerged from the Mongolian steppes to conquer the northern half of the Indian subcontinent.  The exhibition charts the evolution of his dynasty to its peak, in the 16th century, under the liberal leadership of Akbar, who established a royal studio, recruited the best artists from the various kingdoms of his realm and melded their diverse approaches into a distinct and homogeneous Mughal style.   Expressing the traditional Islamic reverence for calligraphy, Akbar commissioned many volumes of poetry, legends and dynastic histories, which also served to consolidate and legitimize his rule.  His grandson, Shah Jahan, looked to more architecture, creating elaborate palaces and gardens, the most famous being the Taj Mahal.  

Such extravagance enraged Shah Jahan’s youngest son, Aurangzeb, a strict Sunni Muslim, who usurped his father to impose his own rigid religion on the multi-cultural state.   Aurangzeb banned music and dancing, and while he never actually forbade painting he took little interest in art; during his reign the royal studio atrophied, though his sons and courtiers continued to commission numerous portraits, as though to assert their presence in the increasingly fractious empire.  Aurangzeb’s strict fundamentalism eventually provoked resistance and led, ultimately, to the breaking up of the empire.  Under the later emperors Mughal art declined, mirroring the decline of the Empire itself, as a string of effete, ineffectual  – often drug- or alcohol-addicted – rulers exchanged their authority for protection by the increasingly powerful British East India Company.  This fragile accommodation ended in 1858 when the British, having ruthlessly suppressed the nascent nationalist movement (known in India as the First War of Independence and in Britain as the Great Indian Rebellion) banished the final emperor, Bahadur Shah II, to ignominious exile. 

Though the exhibition features a few large objects – such as a dramatic set of 17th-century Mughal cavalry armour, complete with sword, shield and protective mail and plate for both rider and horse – it concentrates on small paintings and manuscript illustrations.  Not surprisingly, the official histories and autobiographies present the rulers in all their glory.  Much more interesting, however, are the domestic manuals, story collections, philosophical treatises, botanical and zoological albums, cookbooks, herbals, and even a small piece of erotica, which provide a fascinating insight into the daily life of the court.  One can see how refined and arcane Mughal culture was from such volumes as the 1698 Notebook of Fragrance, a manual on household management providing everything from recipes for perfume to hints on creating a library, or the 1788 Book of Pigeons, an exquisitely illustrated treatise on the care and breeding of these prized creatures.

This intimate picture is rounded out with outsiders’ impressions presented in the photographs, albums, letters and diaries of foreign merchants and diplomats.  The journal of King James I’s ambassador, Sir Thomas Roe, provides a wonderful antidote to the hagiographic official accounts, describing the fearsome emperor Jahangir as ‘merrie and joyful’, while albums commissioned by Europeans provide detailed depictions of local flora, fauna, architecture and events.  Among the most compelling of these are The Fraser Albums, commissioned by William Fraser, a civil servant in early 19th-century Delhi, whose brother, the artist James Baillie Fraser, intended to incorporate the images into a series of aquatints for publication back home in Scotland.   Though the project never materialized, the images remain an invaluable record of daily life as observed by native artists.  

Other paintings, commissioned by the Mughal court, show that the cultural fascination was mutual; such scenes as the 1815 Procession of the Emperor depict Englishmen in dour coats and ridiculous top hats amid the colourful splendour of the royal pageant.   Over the centuries court paintings chart the gradual influence of European art as the traditional Persian style with its meticulous detail, luminous colour and charming narrative elements, gave way to Western perspective, foreign landscapes and botanical accuracy.  This process began in the early 16th century, with the arrival of the Jesuits, whose religious art was soon reflected in the haloes, putti and flowing baroque drapery that begin to infiltrate Mughal paintings. Soon the court portraits were evolving from static profiles to full-face representations with European-style depth and individuality. 

Among the most poignant images in the exhibition, however, are the late photographs, which chart the decay of the empire, whose name has become a byword for grandeur and opulence.  And none is more poignant that the 1858 photo of Bahadur Shah, smoking a hookah, imprisoned and awaiting trial, staring at the camera with the vacant look of a captured tiger.  Unfortunately neither this, nor any of the other photographs, appears in the otherwise excellent catalogue.  Written by the exhibition’s curator, the museum’s current head of visual arts, Malini Roy, and the Library’s retired head of visual arts, J.P. Losty, the catalogue provides a comprehensive introduction and detailed notes to the works, explaining the cultural and political contexts, exploring the objects and events depicted, providing a critical assessment of the artistry involved and cross-referencing with similar or relevant images from other collections.    

Despite the inevitable strain of concentrating for long periods of time, in dimly lit rooms, on small but detailed images, this exhibition provides a rare opportunity to explore what was, at its height, the largest, richest and most powerful empire in the world.