A CRITICAL REVIEW OF EUROPEAN FIGURES AND CHRISTIAN THEMES IN IMPERIAL MUGHAL PAINTINGS

Abstract

The Mughal idea of cosmopolitanism gets reflected in the Imperial Mughal miniature paintings where elements of different cultures have been absorbed through cross-cultural interactions. The advent of the Europeans, especially the Jesuits at the Mughal court in the late sixteenth century not only paved the way for an acculturation process but also brought new socio religious-political ideas to the court. The Mughal rulers were interested in establishing socio political relations with the West and also showed interest in Christianity to meet their own expansionist motives. The Mughal demand for European artefacts were quenched by the different European ambassadors and Christian missions who failed to understand the Mughal plot of political manoeuvring. The religious positioning of Akbar and Jahangir were not only vague but their acts of religious tolerance towards Christians were superficial. The changing equation between the Mughal sovereigns and Western powers made their relationship a complex affair. The influx of European precious objects and paintings left an indelible mark on the Mughal artists who not only adopted the technical and compositional traits of European imagery but also eventually assimilated the iconographical formulations of the image thus creating a new visual allegory. The varied nature of European gifts helped change the vocabulary of Mughal artists. With the growing presence of the Europeans in the Mughal domain, the cultural disparities also lead to narratives of seclusion. The imagination of the West and the Westerner as well as of Christianity became a tool to pictorially subjugate the West by representing Europeans and Christian themes in different contexts. Prior to the Mughal reign in India, no conscious attempt had been undertaken to document and portray the European social classes. During the reign of Akbar, Jahangir and Shahjahan, several pictorial experiments had taken place which reflects the tendencies of Occidentalism. The thesis delves into a critical re reading of the images representing European figures and Christian themes in order to understand the politics of representation. The study focuses on recognizing the artistic and political cross-currents of two different cultures which posit questions of othering. The present work also attempts to map the iconographical and narrative changes brought at the Mughal atelier, also throwing light on how ideological conflicts between Islam and Christianity resurfaces through the miniatures. The study is based on extensive literature and analysis of a large corpus of images which has dealt with the broader subject of Western influence on Mughal Art. The Chapters broadly deal with thematic groups and the images are discussed in a chronological manner to provide a perspective about the evolution and change in the Mughal miniatures. The thesis finds that Europeans in Mughal miniatures have been treated as a unique social group where their ethnographic characters were often highlighted in miniatures dealing i with subjects of amorality. A stereotype of the West has been created and propagated by repeating similar visual tropes of alienation, often treating different European ethnicities as a homogeneous group of white-skinned people. The imagination of the white woman was also projected to legitimize fantasy and erotica. The Mughal artists identified common chords between Islam and Christianity and appropriated images and icons of Christianity to represent their own ideas of kingship and sovereignty. The cultural misconceptions about the Europeans not only affected the compositional scheme of miniatures but also created new political ideas of subjugation.