Persian and Indian Painting
Court miniatures and pictures made in markets and villages belong to one lineage here, showing how a style carried in from Persia mixed with local ways of drawing.
Dictionary entry
- Mughal Miniature 16th–19th centuries / Style
Condenses court life, history, nature and story into a small plane through precise brushwork, gold, pigments, ornamental borders and multiple viewpoints.
- Persian Miniature 13th–17th century / Style
Multiple viewpoints, jewel-like pigments and a composition unafraid of empty space paint poetry and history as complete worlds contained inside a book.
- Kalighat Painting 19th century–1930s / Style
Pilgrims bought these paintings by the sheet at the temple gates of Calcutta, where thick contours and bold omission rendered gods and social satire in the same hand.
- Madhubani traditional–present / Style
Women of the Mithila region in Bihar have painted these festival images on walls and floors for generations. Pattern crowds out every empty space, and the mythic imagery is still alive and still being updated.