Mughal School · Preparations for a Hunt

Unknown artist (Mughal, India), ca.1680. Watercolor on paper, 16.8 x 27.9 cm (6 5/8 x 11 in.) Metropolitan Museum, New York

Mughal painting (developed between the sixteenth and nineteenth centuries) is one of the most interesting chapters of Indian art. The rise of the Mughal Empire led to an important stylistic change in painting, increasing the realism in the representation of the vegetation and animals.

Scenes of royal hunts are relatively common in the repertoire of Mughal painting, but few miniatures show a landscape as detailed as this example from the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. The artist has not included any portrait of its patron, turning the landscape into the main protagonist of this exquisite miniature.

The very high horizon line allows a very detailed representation of the terrain, where the ocher is the dominant color, making a big contrast with the green of the vegetation. Animals and hunters -hidden behind camouflage screens- are shown as static figures, as if they were part of the natural landscape.

G. Fernández – theartwolf.com

Detail of the painting