art of Musaviri.
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Musaviri--a not so academic term for Islamic and Indian miniature painting--has had an interesting colonial and postcolonial history contrasting its current and rapidly escalating popularity in the art world. The article, as part of research for a Master of Fine Art (MFA), looks at the predicament of the art of musaviri during and after British colonisation of India and Pakistan; it traces formation of patronising attitudes towards this tradition in current writing. The study is made with a focus on the Department of Miniature Painting and its highly contested teaching methodologies at the National College of Arts in Lahore. As a practicing musavir or painter, I discuss my own work as part of a group of artists who have emerged from this Department amid debates on 'authenticity' and validity of tradition in 'modern' times.
INTRODUCING MUSAVIRI
Art has had little place in the official policies of the British colonisers but it has played a crucial role in the formation of visual knowledge; it aided in acquiring information and helped generate types and classification systems applicable to the colonised peoples, places, flora, fauna and cultures. Dirks (1) is perhaps talking about art when he says, 'Colonial conquest was not just the result of the power of superior arms, military organisation, political power, or economic wealth. [It was] sustained and strengthened, as much by cultural modes of conquest ...' Significantly, in the context of British colonialism in India, the importance of art as a colonial product, and its impact on both the coloniser and the colonised, is ignored by many postcolonial studies.
Identifying some of these absences, my research primarily deals with the tradition of musaviri, generally called 'Miniature Painting', and its presence and resurfacing as a distinct mode of painting in the late twentieth century. (2) My interest is determined by the persistent nature of this art from the days of colonial omnipresence to present-day postcoloniality. My study looks at negotiation with, and resistance against, the introduced colonial conventions, and how the musaviri traditions remained alive in apparently altered states. These states of defiance, I have to emphasise, have mostly been interpreted, not as subversions, but as deviations and weaknesses. In my research I have primarily tried to follow the course of change in the musaviri tradition; and secondarily--as a gauge of colonialist attitudes toward traditional art--looked at some observations made by collectors, colonialist observers, art critics, and art historians on this transition through the twentieth century.
The resistance offered by musaviri ranges from slight adjustments in the subject matter, to noticeable shifts in the use of technical devices and the language of art representation. There is a lack of literature that specifically deals with the strategies adopted by a miniature painter or musavir during colonisation from an insider's perspective. (3) An area like this has been previously unexplored in colonial and postcolonial art histories. (4)
This study is distinct as it reports from the position of a practitioner. It tries to find, within art history, some instances and devices adopted by a painter, and how these forms of resistance have culminated in the current revival of musaviri in Pakistan. This article informs, and in turn is informed by my own practice and research in a musaviri studio, as the process of painting is analytical of the history of this tradition. I have been trained as a 'miniature painter' and have gone through rigorous studio training in Lahore, Pakistan. This position offers an advantage to me in the practical aspects of a tradition that has often been portrayed as a mysterious, esoteric form of art in scholarly studies about the history of miniature painting.
In this paper I have introduced some of the historical instances and general history of the art, in order to explain the nature of resistance of the musavirs. The structure does not follow a chronological order, but discusses several layers of historical influences that affected musaviri. Colonial presence is of course the major protagonist in the scenario, along with its accompanying technical and technological devices introduced into the local art scene. By the mid-twentieth century, and with the inception of two separate nation states, the art of musaviri went through a crisis in representation on a national level, as far as Pakistan was concerned. Pakistan is where I was born and it's from this perspective that I report about the situation of the musaviri.
Historically, the art of musaviri had been patronised by Safavid, Mughal, Rajasthani and Ottoman courts on a lavish scale. To a great extent, musaviri owed its existence to court patronage. However, over the last 250 years, when the greater part of India was colonised, musaviri has had to compromise with colonial patrons, compete with mechanical means of image making, negotiate with a hostile academy and uninterested art students, and struggle against 'modernity'. Musaviri must have developed certain means to adapt to the changes affected by a colonial presence. What is the nature of this resistance? Some clues might be found in its methodology and its root in the formality of a convention.
Traditionally, there has been a strong disciplinary method employed to teach, learn and produce the art. It involves learning several stages of production of a painting, namely, preparation of paper support for painting, preparation of colours, mixing of the tones in separate shells (used as a palette), preparation of brushes, maintenance of a clean studio, serving the Ustad, (5) and essentially being devout to the discipline. The craft of making an image or tasveer (6) itself demands patience and concentrated labour. Prominent attributes of musaviri are its highly refined quality, bright hues, decorated and ornamental forms, the outlining of each form with a darker tone, strong composition, a tiered perspective, and usually a narrative.
This form of painting differs significantly from the western mode of painting. There are basic distinctions to be made when discussing the musaviri tradition in comparison to European miniature or easel painting. European conventions regarding representational or realistic art emerged from Renaissance science. Thus, the European colonisers' point of view, literally and figuratively, differed from that of the colonised, as Indians belonged to a significantly different culture. Later in the paper, I look at the nature of difference and how it has marked the 'traditional' as the 'obsolete' in the recent past of Pakistani art.
BRITISH COLONIAL 'IMPROVEMENTS'
During British colonial rule in India, the musavirs were trying to unlearn their traditional training, and began to use a system of rendering perspective that conformed to European notions of a 'correct' 'scientific' perspective. Unlike the demands of previous patrons, the European representational conventions were culturally and technically removed from prevalent local aesthetics and these changes occurred over a comparatively short period of time. (7) The musavirs undid the refinement of outlining forms and used tonal gradations instead; they rethought the use of bright hues in favour of a paler, greyer palette. A painting from the 1830s, Cook returning from the bazaar (Figure 1) is clearly different from the traditional, elaborate tasveer. The figures are devoid of a physical context and are placed in a 'neutral' space, though there is the suggestion of atmospheric depth. The colours are grey and gloomy and applied as if in a watercolour sketch. These changes were made to accommodate the taste of the new patrons who had replaced the conventional local patrons. This style of painting, which portrayed local people and was executed primarily for a British clientele, was termed firka (8) painting in the Company School in reference to the East India Company.
Despite the efforts and attempts to learn European techniques of representation, the working methodology of local Indian painters was fundamentally different from European modes of painting. As a result, the British connoisseurs and observers found the local art to be scientifically incorrect and thus inferior to western painting. In an early example from 1872, the writer assesses a musavir's way of working:
[He] has an instinctive appreciation of colour, and, though without any knowledge of the principles which should regulate its use, is often more happy in his combinations than the educated workman of Europe. His colour is often exaggerated, but it is always warm, and rich and fearless. The native artist is also patient: for weeks and months he will work at his design, painfully elaborating the most minute details; no time is considered too long, no labour too intense to secure perfection in intimation or delicacy in execution. The greatest failing in native artists is their ignorance of perspective and drawing, and it is fortunate that this want is the most easily supplied. (9)
Here the local painting is judged according to European standards, despite the praise and appreciation of certain qualities that impressed the observer. The 'ignorance of perspective and drawing', according to the observers' standards becomes 'the greatest failing', which of course can be rectified by western training.
A century later, an art historian judges the work of musavirs by European canons again. The very same fault in the use of perspectival system is ignored while certain architectural drawings are praised, like Interior of the tomb of Itimad-ud-daula (Figure 2), from the 1830s. In Archer's (10) opinion of the painting: 'there are certain characteristics-exaggerated perspective, a passionless preoccupation with detail, a deep regard for minute and intricate shapes'. But Archer is cautious: 'Although the paintings are in no way an atmospheric or picturesque evocation of the buildings, they record with exquisite skill that ethereal and lace-like delicacy of ornament which the British most valued in Indian architecture'. Seemingly, the image solely depended on a colonialist taste, from its subject matter to its method of execution and, later, for its acceptance or rejection. The terms of existence are imposed by the British collector--by the patron as a condition of patronage--causing a gradual but definite shift from providing the local musavir with the 'necessary European skills' of image making, to deciding about the high levels attained by traditional musavirs in the past. Even when the native painter attempted to adopt the desired vocabulary of art presentation, he performed a spurious act. A sensitive piece of writing from British painter, Valentine Prinsep, (11) in the late nineteenth century (written upon a visit by Delhi artists) indicates the nature of negotiation: 'I pointed out to the old man certain faults--and glaring ones--of perspective, and he has promised to do me a view of the Golden Temple without any faults.' (emphasis added)
IMPRINTS OF PHOTOGRAPHY
A major factor that caused significant shifts in traditional methods of painting was photography. For the colonial anthropologist and archaeologist, it was an extremely useful tool to record and designate historical significance to the local culture. On the other, hand musaviri was considerably affected on many levels by the early arrival of photography to the region in 1840. Local painters were forced either to learn the new technology of 'taking likenesses' or find other ways to make a living. However: 'To compete, painters had explored all avenues, from making painted copies of photographs, to painting over them'. (12) The 'photo-painting' and use of photographic reference is significant to my research, as it offers a unique instance of hybridity in the history of musaviri; one system of representation conjoins with the other and exposes cultural conventions inherent in both the systems.
I must point out the fundamental technical differences in the format of a tasveer and a photograph. A tasveer used the devices of colour, line and ornamental pattern, highlighting areas of interest; whereas, a photograph of the nineteenth century incorporated monotone, defined volume through the play of light and shadow, and lacked the stylised refinement of surface ornament. There are a series of images from the late nineteenth century that show curious usage of photographic references. Most of the histories on the subject of Company painting do not explain these phenomena and only give descriptions of the subject matter--often related to some ambiguous reference the writer finds interesting, and which has little to do with the image. Welch, for instance, has found an archetype in a painting, A Rathore Princess (Figure 3):
To understand and appreciate the ample lady of this miniature, one need only look beyond the earmarks of time--the flowers, tassels, book and chair--to recognize an Indian archetype: the forceful senior wife who protects traditional values as well as the family coffers. Stable and staunch, self-possessed, benevolent but firm, she is well known to everyone who has lived in India ... (13)
From a musavir's point of view, the image signifies a transitional era, when the musavirs tried to adjust their practice, according to the 'new reality' of photography. This example is most probably painted from a photograph. Painted by an unknown Rajasthani artist from the mid-nineteenth century, it clearly points out his confusion about rendering a one-point perspective. The composition is a conventional photographic one--sitter on a chair, resting a hand or arm on a cloth-covered or bare table, which sports a couple of English books and a vase with flowers. The backdrop is a heavy drapery, installed in Victorian fashion. These elements were essential props of studio photography of the times.
A late-nineteenth-century Portrait of Maharaja Bikram Singh of Faridkot with his son (Figure 4), by Ustad Allah Ditta, is another good example of photographic reference. The image is painted over a light photographic print in siyah-qalam. (14) A 'naturalistic' perspective is used to compose the image--captured by photographic vision; tonal values are used to define forms and their volume. Unlike musaviri conventions of using an outline around each 'flat' form in the image, the sitters were photographed in a studio, and the furniture and other props, were used in other photographs as well.
ART SCHOOLS AND MUSAVIRI
Throughout colonial rule in India, a constant and perplexing shift is noticeable in the reactions of the British towards the local arts and crafts. Reactions fluctuated between an appraisal of detail and a downright disgust over forms and subjects, methods and techniques, and matters of taste. The local artists constantly tried to adjust and modify their ways of painting to accommodate the new tastes and technical transformations, and to ensure patronage along with a repetitive reproduction of old miniatures, which found a viable market among the colonisers. By the end of the nineteenth century the art had lost its trademark detailed ornamentation and finesse due to the loss of serious training and practice. According to the British officials, the quality of the local arts and crafts was declining, though this assessment was made more in relation to 'applied' arts. Officially, an attempt was made to improve the condition of native arts through the introduction of a European curriculum in art-industry schools. (15) These schools, founded in Madras, Calcutta, Bombay and Lahore, can be identified as major contributors to the shifting of standards and teaching methodologies in the local and traditional arts. With this historical background, I am assessing the situation of musaviri in Pakistan where the production of art has been heavily dependent on the graduates and teachers from art schools founded by the British.
During the greater part of the twentieth century, musaviri lacked a consistent patronage. Painters worked in a range of other modes; workshops of artists located in market places mass-produced copies of old Mughal miniatures, portrait-sets of Mughal kings and queens, and architectural drawings on ivory and paper, which were then sold at competitive prices. Within the art-industry schools, musaviri never existed as a taught discipline in any school until 1945, when the Mayo School of Art and Industry in Lahore (now National College of Arts) recruited an Ustad to offer classes in 'miniature painting', but only as one minor subject.
It was Haji Muhammad Sharif (1889-1978), who was hired to teach miniature painting at the Mayo School. (16) As a musavir in Lahore, Sharif referred in his painting to Muslim history, particularly the Mughal dynasty. Sharif's interpretation of 'Mughal grandeur' can be attributed to his training and to a clientele of patrons and connoisseurs who preferred an idealised depiction of their (selective) past. Historically, this was happening at a point when the search for a personal and religio-national identity was crucial to them both after the founding of a new nation state. (17) Musaviri became a site for deployment and refinement of ideas, feeding a newly found identity. (18)
I will look at a typical work of Sharif from 1950s, to explain this. The Procession of Aurangzeb (Figure 5) is a particularly interesting work detailing a royal procession of the last powerful Mughal emperor, but in a fashion that can be called fantasised. The painting sets up a troop of attendants, soldiers and courtiers surrounding the emperor. Significantly, they are placed in a virtually deserted landscape, reminiscent of the paintings from the Company School, where figures are depicted devoid of a context. Except for a horizon with small hills, there is no reference to the space as a 'social' or atmospheric context of the figures. (19) Perhaps this depiction alludes to a new beginning with the inception of Pakistan in 1947. It may refer to the erasure of the context for a musavir, who though forging a past and future image for the consumers, had missed a place in the rapid western modernisation of the art scene.
It is worth looking at some responses to Sharif's work in Lahore. Here, his work and person is judged by an influential art critic and collector:
His work was in the great old tradition of miniaturists, but on the one hand it lacked the refinement of the best work of this kind produced in the days of Jahangir and, on the other, it was completely out of place in the modern world, so that it was admired and purchased only by foreigners who were looking for exotic arts and crafts. It was actually a craft and not an art for there was no suggestion of self-expression in it. (20)
It is significant to note that the critic has analysed the art and artist in terms of a magnificent past, and termed contemporary works as an exotic craft. There was urgency after independence in 1947, both in India and in Pakistan, to modernise everything, to forge an identity that would reflect the religio-nationalist or secular ideologies. The main focus was towards the current, the western, and the modernist aspects of art. As musaviri was disqualified, due to its ascribed status as an old craft that 'was completely out of place in the modern world', it was never considered part of mainstream art movements.
Within the art school, where it was taught, there was no support for the musaviri practice, with the result that very few students opted to learn the craft. The practice of miniature painting was thus isolated from the mainstream practices of modern painting and sculpture. In such a situation, it is hardly surprising that there were very few persons in Pakistan who could be termed as practitioners of miniature painting from the 1950s to the 1980s. The few practicing musavirs were consistently marginalised as representatives of an exotic craft.
NEW BEGINNINGS IN LAHORE
In 1982, miniature painting was introduced at the National College of Arts as a four-year bachelor's degree program, becoming one of the four major subjects offered at the College at an undergraduate level. (21) Some professors in the College supported the program; otherwise, it encountered negative criticism that constantly maintained an atmosphere of negation and humiliation toward a practice not completely understood. It was a common assumption that the 'traditional' should be dispensed with in order to move towards 'modernism'. Salima Hashmi, an educationist long associated with National College of Arts, analyses the situation:
It was debated whether this antiquated genre was of any relevance to the training of young artists today. It was also debated whether this discipline would only strengthen revivalism and a nostalgia for the past, without serious understanding of its form and content. (22)
The department aimed to offer a different approach towards musaviri than what was prevailing in the art scene. It aimed at an 'introduction to the styles and convention, of miniature painting' and 'On the basis of the traditional techniques, to bring the medium into a contemporary context'. (23) The objectives were, and are, not easy to fulfil. Although they seemed clear enough and helped to determine the future course of practice and teaching of miniature painting, it took some time to produce something that qualified to the standards. Bashir Ahmed, who was mainly responsible for setting up, and now runs, the department, is a strong advocate of the discipline. He questions the neglect of musaviri: 'How could we ignore such an important form of expression, which is a record of our sociopolitical and cultural history?' (24) He gives the reasons for the survival of musaviri during the troubled political history the south Asian region:
For viewers, it had always been a familiar art. They liked its visual patterns and the stories it told. This way, even in the absence of royal patronage, it survived in our society. One could buy a fine copy of an old art piece. At that crucial time, copywork played a significant role in the art's life but stopped its way to creative originality. (25)
In the 1980s, the Department of Miniature Painting lacked a solid pedagogical history, an Ustad and willing students, and a future. The two old Ustads who had taught in the institution, Haji Sharif and Sheikh Shujaullah--classified as old masters but nonetheless marginalised--had died without contributing to the 'national' heritage to the satisfaction of modern artists. (26) In this context the instructive methodology was contested both within and outside the department, particularly the incorporated reproduction of old works from different schools of musaviri. Opponents of musaviri fiercely opposed this method of teaching, failing to acknowledge that there can be an alternative, and equally valid, approach to that of western modernity. In this situation students felt a lack of clear institutional guidance.
The department was working with only one teacher and one or two students each year--in some years, there were no students at all. (27) Throughout the 1980s 'there were tentative attempts to re-work Mughal imagery and rearrange compositions'. (28) This work helped devise a course for future students, testing and refining the methodology, and primarily contributed towards the preparation of a sort of nursery, which would be used in the augmentation of more serious and informed projects. In the absence of a precedent, it was hard to produce work of consistent individuality and pronounced originality. As students in the Department of Miniature Painting, despite the pronounced absence of any contemporary precedent to identify with, we were expected to possess the legendary qualities of a 'master painter' and be prolific in the production of exotic images, which had a ready market but little acceptance in the mainstream art.
In 1991, with a thesis titled The Scroll (Figure 6), by Shazia Sikander, a breakthrough was made in the much criticised low profile of the department. This breakthrough was caused by a treatment of a subject, both methodologically and conceptually, different from previous projects. Sikander's thesis challenged the assumption that miniature painting deals only with romantic subjects, and by its very nature, refers to the past. She offered the viewer a personal critique of an upper-middle-class woman's lifestyle. For audiences in Pakistan, this was an unexpected presentation in a so-called traditional genre, particularly one that had been pronounced obsolete as a vehicle for artistic expression. Why did this project invite such a response? In the following section I discuss some of the elements that to some extent, discouraged the growth of traditional musaviri and modified the prevalent visual language to a great extent over a period of one hundred years. I have looked at some of the technical influences brought by the British presence that caused a stasis in the traditional practice of musaviri in the region. These changes influenced the subsequent formation of opinion towards local arts. It is important to analyse the construction of a myth surrounding musaviri.
THE MYTH OF MUSAVIRI
Contemporary musaviri is expected to carry charms of a glorious past, address current issues, as well as conform to the canons of a modern artistic practice. On the one hand, there is a simultaneous celebration and championing of the efforts of contemporary musavirs by a number of writers, critics and connoisseurs of art; and on the other, there are questions about the nature of 'miniatures' in a modern society:
The recent display of miniatures ... opened up a number of questions about this traditional genre. Since the old masters have already taken miniature painting to great heights, any attempt to emulate the themes and grandeur of these older works will invariably fall short. The result may be a well executed and pretty picture, but it remains a static reproduction of earlier Mughal or Persian works. (29)
Present in the observation is an attempt to guard the painter, while placing an emphasis on the 'great heights' of miniature painting. At the same time the writer fails to understand the significance of using the reproduction of old works as a learning method to teach the technique. The next challenge is 'to reinterpret this tradition and make it relevant to our times'. (30) The writer discourages emerging musavirs from aspiring to the 'unattainable' heights musaviri has already reached in the past. There is a denial of a rediscovered tradition. The fundamental question is why has the writer adopted this tone in her writing? In the extract, Mughal and Persian painting traditions are defined as a standard, also as something sacred, of unattainable and supreme beauty, but where is the standard 'great painting'? Is it among the western collections that were accumulated over the colonial years?
What do these objects of great beauty signify for an art student from a former colony? Are they supposed to carry the essence of traditional wisdom--one that better not be disturbed? Are these supreme examples secure in 'collections', protected from interrogation? Through historical discourses and collection practices, the definition of the tradition of the Other has been fixed, and the cultural production is thereby controlled. Cohn observes:
It was the British who, in the nineteenth century, defined in an authoritative and effective fashion how the value and meaning of the objects produced or found in India were determined. It was the patrons who created a system of classification which determined what was valuable, that which could be preserved as monuments of the past, that which was collected and placed in museums, that which could be bought and sold, that which would be taken from India as mementoes and souvenirs of their own relationship to India and Indians. (31)
Even to this day, perhaps more avidly and ceremoniously than the British were doing during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, the pattern of collection, dictation and discourse stays the same in the former colonies. When the local art is not being compared to its own grand past, it is measured against the European canon of art making. In Pakistani art reviews, the art production is constantly, and persistently, judged against either a western/eurocentric yardstick of modern art, or in the context of a 'new miniature painting', against 'a traditional genre'. This assessment stems both from the colonial experience as well as the educational system that replaced the local with the imported. Sundar observes:
British interpretations, repeated authoritatively for a long period of time, led to Indians looking at themselves and their culture through Western eyes, which was of course the desired end of the policy of cultural imperialism ... (32)
The very acceptance of a superior knowledge system that situates musaviri (or any indigenous practice) as a relic, along with determining the place and value of this art in the past of a colonised people, makes any observation external, incomplete and superficial. As an example look at Archer's words: '[British rule in India] was to start the process by which India's medieval culture came gradually into line with the ideas and values of the modern age.' (33) The assumed superiority originates in the 'doctrine of civilization', according to which the cultural supremacy of the conqueror is asserted in the act of conquest; and that supremacy implied that the 'less fortunate beings' are to be elevated to a level to understand the superior culture and 'thereby supplant the inferior native culture'. (34)
'OUR WORK IS RIGHTEOUS AND IT SHALL ENDURE' (35)
In the colonial period in Pakistan and India, and up until the present time, musaviri has been an art form about which European and American scholars have produced the majority of literature. Works of this nature deal primarily with the history of the time and exclude the technical, social and/or political context of its production. The scholar decides where the art fits into the history of the region and, through that, assumes an imperialist stance. The local scholars have repeated the set patterns in their studies of the local arts, mostly without noticing a hegemonic character of the scholarly discourse. In Chakrabarty's words: 'Europe works as a silent referent in historical knowledge', which 'continues to dominate the discourse of history'. (36) Following the patterns of western art history and discourse, there have been few voices to challenge the norm. The legacy of colonialism endures when the writings of western experts are still acceptable as the standard against which a 'native' scholarship has to qualify. Sundar, through her work on the British policy and scholarship of Indian art, questions the nature of this standard: 'When the bulk of scholarship is by a people who perceive themselves as superior to those being observed, it is their view of themselves and of the observed that is propagated and reinforced'. (37)
The cultural production of a colonised India remained beyond a complete understanding of the colonial scholars, but nonetheless they were opinionated and offered suggestions, justifications and histories of the production, and declared it at times to be unsurpassable in its finesse, thus un-reproducible and beyond the scope and talents of the contemporary native artists. These attitudes have created an aura of sacred convention surrounding musaviri. As a consequence it has been presented in terms of evidence of 'glories past' and classified as an artefact, which, incidentally, now resides in European and North American museum collections.
These scholarly attitudes, historical discourses, physical absences, and an invisible continuum of a traditional system, are all components of the current practice of musaviri. Contrary to the pronouncement of the demise of a tradition, something quite unexpected has been happening in Pakistan. Despite the non-supportive presences, and certainly due to some absences, there is a consistent and refreshing series of attempts by a number of graduates from the Department of Miniature Painting to question and redefine the boundaries set for this traditional art.
Recently, there has been a very noticeable change in the tone of critics and scholars about the existence of such a phenomenon. In the late 1990s, the practitioner of musaviri became a prized commodity for the critics and curators. The expectations from a young musavir are different, if not higher now. With the rise of national and international art galleries interested in marketing the exotic, the Other, and the postcolonial, a wider so-called western audience has begun to notice the newest forms of musaviri. Quite predictably and thankfully, local critics and scholars have taken the cue and started to praise the musavir's efforts.
Being part of the scene, and observing the change of attitudes toward this discipline, I have found the process quite swift. My own work attempts to offer a comment on the current practice of musaviri from a position of understanding the politics involved in its presentation to a western audience. The images I use in my work are drawn from a range of visual, historical and political sources that have affected the practice of musaviri as a genre. A painting titled Justified behavioural sketch (Figure 7) comments on the presence of the European point of view on south-Asian aesthetics. I have tried to do so by placing a silhouette of a photographic image that shows four polo-playing British army officers over an appropriated Pahari painting that shows a shy and passive bride to be. The layering that is present in the painting refers to several influences on the practice of musaviri; this layering has contributed to the formation of the new identity of the genre.
Pakistani artists like Shazia Sikander, Imran Qureshi, Talha Rathore and Aisha Kahlid are consistently showing their interpretations of the tradition in a global context. How and where the contemporary work is displayed, reviewed and noticed is still tied to cultural curatorial politics. B. N. Goswamy comments, after viewing a recent show of paintings from Pakistan:
Interestingly things are beginning to change. Apart from some early and rather hesitant attempts at incorporating, within the miniature format and technique, relatively new content, there is the very engaging work [of Amrit and Rabindra Kaur] ... And now comes some miniature work from Pakistan that has an interest all its own. It might have been known over there for a while, but I happened to see it only recently ... (38)
ENDNOTES
(1) Nicholas B. Dirks, Bernard S. Cohn (Fwd.), Colonialism and Its Forms of Knowledge: the British in India, Princeton University Press, Princeton, 1996, ix.
(2) Musaviri--a word used in Urdu and Persian to describe a way of painting or the act of painting itself. 'Miniature painting' is misleading in terms of the cultural origins of this tradition; and it does not explain the characteristics of the painting--apart from its size, which is not a defining feature.
(3) Musavir--(Urdu) painter, image maker.
(4) There are significant investigations into the colonial art scene of Bengal and its involvement with the nationalist movement from 1850s to 1947 and India in general by Mitter, Guha, Sundar, Guha-Thakurta and Cohn. Of these studies, only Mitter focuses on the art of painting in India during the British colonial period. Partha Mitter, Art and Nationalism in India 1850-1922, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1994; Ranajit Guha, Dominance Without Hegemony: History and Power in Colonial India, Oxford University Press, Delhi, 1998; Pushpa Sundar, Patrons and Philistines: Arts and the State in British India 1773-1947, Oxford University Press, New Delhi, 1995; Tapati Guha-Thakurta, The Making of New 'Indian' Art: Artists, Aesthetics and Nationalism in Bengal c.1850-1920, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1992; Bernard S. Cohn, Colonialism and its Forms of Knowledge: The British in India, Princeton University Press, Princeton, 1996.
(5) Ustad--(Urdu) a mentor, teacher and/or guide.
(6) Tasveer--(Urdu) a painted image.
(7) Introduction of European elements in south Asian painting is not new. In sixteenth century, artists from Mughal emperor Akbar's court were introduced to European prints; his successor and connoisseur Jahangir eagerly collected artefacts and exotica from around the world and commissioned his artists to make copies of Flemish engravings. Painters working in royal atelier adopted many compositional elements over the years. This accumulation and appropriation of western elements happened in many different atmospheres, it was more of an intercultural encounter rather than dictated influence. As a result, the artist did not question his training as technically inferior or incompetent. Rather the pieces produced for Jahangir were presented as proof of artists' diligence and skill. See Khalid Anis Ahmed (ed.), Intercultural Encounter in Mughal Miniatures, National College of Arts, Lahore, 1995.
(8) Firka--(Urdu) means 'occupation', 'sect' or 'caste'. Firka painting sets were an extremely popular item and similar to souvenir photographic images or postcards of modern day. See Archer, Company Drawings in the India Office Library; Mildred Archer & W. G. Archer, Indian Painting for the British 1770-1880, Oxford University Press, London, 1955.
(9) B. H. Badenpowell cited in Pal & Dehejia, From Merchants to Emperors: British Artists and India 1757-1930, Cornell University Press, Ithaca, 1986, 156.
(10) Mildred Archer, Company Drawings in the India Office Library, Her Majesty's Stationery Office, London, 1972, 9.
(11) Valentine Prinsep, Imperial India, London, 1879, cited in Pal & Dehejia: From Merchants to Emperors, 154. (emphasis added)
(12) Stuart Cary Welch, India, Art and Culture 1300-1900, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, 1986, 444.
(13) Welch, India: Art and Culture, 441.
(14) Siyah-qalam--a technique of painting in black ink, used by musavirs. Due to its painstaking execution in dots or tiny brush strokes, it closely resembles the 'retouching' and 'colouring' techniques used by photographers. It is not surprising that some musavirs--especially those trained in Mughal style--could very easily adapt their technique and apply it to rendering images of photographic nature.
(15) For a detailed account see Sundar and Guha-Thakurta.
(16) Khalid Anis Ahmed, Legend that was: Ustad Haji Muhammad Sharif, catalogue of an exhibition with the same title, Lahore 1997. Haji Sharif had an ancestry in the art; he himself, his father Ustad Basharat Ullah and grandfather Ustad Allah Ditta had served the Sikh court of Patiala, where they painted Sikh religious and secular subjects for the maharajas.
(17) Stylistically, Sharif's work differed a lot from his ancestor's work. Despite his prolific career, there are not many paintings that can be pointed out as representative of a particular style. Sharif was most productive during and after the creation of Pakistan in 1947. In 1967 he was awarded the President's Medal for Pride of Performance and also the title of Musavir-e- Pakistan. His approval as a 'court painter' is reflective of an aspiration of some people for a grand lineage and past. Many migrant families adopted 'superior' tribal and clan names after partition, thus erasing an 'undesirable' past, and becoming part of revered societal elite.
(18) Sharif began to sign his works in this way: 'Haji Muhammad Sharif Musavir, National College of Arts, Lahore, Pakistan'. His previous works have not been signed in this elaborate manner, prior to his arrival in Lahore. The pride of association with National College of Arts is noticeable, which indicates his desire to be identified among the 'moderns'.
(19) This format of painting is significantly different form conventional musaviri, where the compositions are busy, crowded and animate.
(20) S. Amjad Ali, 'The trail of paint', Pakistan Quarterly, vol. 15, nos. 1 & 2, 1967, 233.
(21) The department was and still is called 'Department of Miniature Painting'; the use of such a term has not been questioned. The other three departments are Painting, Sculpture and Printmaking.
(22) Salima Hashmi, 'Negotiating borders, contemporary miniatures from Pakistan' exhibition catalogue, Siddhartha Gallery, Kathmandu, March 2003.
(23) Course Outline, Department of Miniature Painting, Fine Arts, National College of Arts, Lahore, c.1980, 28.
(24) Bashir Ahmed in an interview with Ashfaq Rasheed, 'I took miniature painting as a challenge', the Nation, Lahore, July 16 2000.
(25) Ahmed.
(26) Sheikh Shujaullah was the other major practitioner of musaviri in Pakistan a contemporary of Haji Sharif. He also belonged to a family of painters.
(27) There were efforts by professors from other departments to coerce students to transfer to Painting, Printmaking or Sculpture. It was argued that miniature painting is only copy-work, thus obstructing originality and creativity. I studied at the department and later taught there. Contrary to the observations of professors, I have experienced that there has been a constant transition and improvement in the work produced by the students and in the teaching methodology. But these changes according to some critics are degenerative and dogmatic in character.
(28) Salima Hashmi, 'Radicalising tradition' Artlink, vol. 20, no.2, 2000, 33.
(29) Zehra Laila Javeri, 'Something old, something new', the Herald, Karachi, January 1998, 284.
(30) Javeri, 284.
(31) Bernard Cohn, Colonialism And Its Forms of Knowledge: the British in India, Princeton University Press, Princeton, 1996, 77.
(32) Sundar, 11.
(33) Archer & Archer, 1.
(34) Sundar, 8-9.
(35) Lord Curzon, viceroy of India from 1899-1905. Quoted in Sundar, 9.
(36) Dipesh Chakrabarty, 'Postcoloniality and the artifice of history: Who speaks for "Indian" pasts', Representations, no. 37, winter 1992, 2.
(37) Sundar, 10.
(38) B. N. Goswamy, 'Miniatures in another vein', the Tribune, Chandigarh, Sunday 20 January, 2002.
