The history of North Indian painting from the 16th through the 19th centuries is dominated by two distinct stylistic traditions, one flourishing at the court of the Mughal empire, the other at courts of the various Rajput dynasties that held sway in regions beyond the Mughal domain. Despite complex historical relationships between the two traditions, modern scholarship has tended to emphasize their separate identities as distinct isolable schools with mutually opposing stylistic and aesthetic ideals. Mughal painting is characterized as "naturalistic," "rational," "political"; contemporary Rajput work is seen as "lyrical," "erotic," and "spiritual" in approach. In this course we will approach Mughal and Rajput painting by examining some of the fundamental assumptions and methods upon which modern historiography of these schools rests, dealing with the relationship between painting and literature, the structure of patronage and the degree of the patron's influence in shaping style, and the extent to which the Mughal style was influenced by 16th-century European prints and paintings. One of our guiding purposes will be to come to terms with Mughal and Rajput as easthetic categories. To what extent does this binary stylistic taxonomy rest on formal stylistic qualities, and to what extent has it been shaped by the Hindu-Muslim communal discourse of modern India?
COURSE FORMAT: Discussion Seminar
Level: UG Credit: 1.00
Prerequisites: ARHA286 or ARHA285 or ARHA280
Last Updated on MAR-10-1997
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