ART
A pearl of poetry and paint
A lavishly illustrated 16th century Mughal book, normally
accessible only to scholars, receives a rare public showing.
calligrapher and his workshop of artists to craft a
luxurious edition of one of the great works of
Persian poetry, known as "The Pearls of the Parrot of
India." The book had 31 full-page illustrations
painted with delicacy and beauty. For many years,
looking at most of them has been a private
experience, limited mainly to scholars. That, after
all, is the nature of a rare book.
Now, for the first time, 29 of the miniature paintings
are separate and on display in a show at the Walters
Art Museum called "The Pearls of the Parrot of
India: The Emperor Akbar's Illustrated Khamsa,
1595-98." It closes at the Walters on Sept. 11 and
goes on to the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New
York for a stay from Oct. 14 to Jan. 29. "There will
not be another opportunity in our lifetime to view all
of these magnificent illustrations together," says
Walters Director Gary Vikan.
By Stanley Meisler
Special to The Times
July 10, 2005
In the last years of the 16th century, Emperor Akbar,
the illiterate Mughal ruler of India, ordered his finest
The exhibition is also a chance to learn more about
the art of the Mughals — the Islamic conquerors
from Central Asia who ruled India for 300 years
before the British colonized it in the early 19th
century. Although the Mughals were native speakers
of Central Asian languages and ruled a people who
spoke mainly Hindi, the language of the court was
Persian, and the book is a classic of Persian
literature.
The exhibition's paintings, about the size of the
Seizing opportunity
The exhibition is possible only because the binding
of the book deteriorated over the centuries, forcing
restorers to separate its more than 200 pages last
year in preparation for rebinding. With the pages
loose, the Walters decided to display the paintings
on its walls all at once and add eight missing ones
owned by the Metropolitan Museum. The book will
be rebound and stored in the Walters collection of
manuscripts and rare books after the close of the
show in New York.
As before, the book will not be complete. When
Baltimore industrialist Henry Walters purchased it a
hundred years ago, 10 of the 31 illustrated pages had
been cut out, evidently by a dealer who wanted to
sell them separately. Eight showed up at the Met in
1913 as the gift of a collector and will go back to the
Met after the show. The whereabouts of the two
other illustrated pages are not known.
When the Emperor Akbar ordered the crafting of the
luxurious book, he was honoring a 300-year-old
classic that itself was an adaptation of a classic
written more than a hundred years earlier. The who
called himself "the parrot of India."
Having killed a youth accidently,
Akbar offers the mother either
his Akbar’s head on a platter or
the platter heaped with gold.
pages of a coffee table book, depict climactic
moments from the moral lessons, historical
narratives and Persian folk tales set down in the
poetry. The illustrations brim with delightful detail,
personable characters and delicate landscaping.
Painted more than 400 years ago in what is known as
opaque watercolor, the colors are still bright and
fresh. Even the few ordinary pages of the book on
display — the ones without paintings — are
surprising, their finely wrought Arabic script
bordered by ink and gold wash drawings of
vegetation, horses, men and Islamic symbols.
Khusraw, the son of a Turkish warrior and an Indian
woman of noble family, was the court poet for
several Islamic sultans who ruled India. Although he
wrote Hindi songs that have remained popular in
India for centuries, he prided himself on his mastery
of Persian.
Khusraw liked to say he was letting "pearls of poesy
drop from my mouth." His best-known pearls took
the form of his adaptation, around 1300, of a
renowned book known as the Khamsa (or quintet of
long poems) by the Persian poet Nizami Ganjavi.
Nizami wrote his book around 1200. Khusraw
followed the meter and much of the story line of
Nizami's five poems, but the words were his own.
"He wanted to show that good Persian poetry is
written in India," said John Seyller, a professor of art
history at the University of Vermont and the author
of an exhaustive study of the Walters manuscript.
permitted to sign their pages, a rare honor in Mughal
manuscripts.
"He wanted to show that we Indians can do as well
as Nizami."
He failed but came close. "Most people would say
he's No. 2," Seyller said in a recent phone
conversation. "He's still not Nizami."
Akbar the Great, a Mughal born in India, ruled the
land for half a century, from 1556 to 1605. In his
history of the country, Jawaharlal Nehru, the first
prime minister of an independent India, described
Akbar as "daring and reckless, an able general, and
yet gentle and full of compassion, an idealist and a
dreamer."
Although he could not read, perhaps because of
dyslexia, he amassed a library of 24,000 volumes
and would summon courtiers to read aloud to him
every day.
Akbar commissioned sumptuous illustrated
manuscripts of works that he regarded as most
important. The most elegant are the Khamsa of
Nizami, now in the British Library in London, and
the Khamsa of Khusraw, now in the Walters. The
best-known calligrapher of the era, Mohammad
Hussayn al-Kashmiri, who bore the title of "the Gold
Pen," was assigned to set down the script of the
Khusraw poems. Writing at the painstaking pace of
only 16 1/2 lines a day, it took him two years to
complete the text. The book was finished in either
1597 or 1598 in Akbar's capital of Lahore, in what is
now Pakistan.
While the Gold Pen worked on the calligraphy, 13
master painters from the imperial workshop were
assigned to produce the 31 illustrations. Although
most of the Mughal painters were born in India, they
were trained in Persian techniques. They were also
influenced by European styles that they had seen in
prints brought to India by Christian missionaries.
The European influence is reflected in the threedimensional modeling of the figures and the
tendency to include distant landscaping in the
corners of a painting. The illustrated pages were so
highly regarded that four of the artists were
Scenes spilling over with life
Many things go on in these miniature paintings. In
fact, "you sometimes don't realize immediately what
the central event is," said Hiram Woodward, curator
of the Walters exhibition, as he explained the detail
in one, "Layla and Majnun Fall in Love at School."
The page illustrates a moment from a poem about
two young lovers who, much like Romeo and Juliet,
are destined to die for their love.
A large teacher, sitting with four students on the
carpeted roof of the school, dominates the painting at
first. Three students, including Layla, are girls, while
the fourth, Majnun (a name that means "possessed
by demons"), is a boy. Although Layla and Majnun
are studying their books, they can be made out
spying on each other as well, she shyly, he intently.
On the level below, five rowdy students are fighting,
one
rolling
upside
down.
painted as many pages as Dharmadasa and Sanvala.
It is obvious that a background in Persian literature
and folk tales would deepen the pleasure of studying
these miniature paintings. Most visitors to the
museum don't have that. But the Walters tries to
make up for that lack with ample labels and
placards, a model of lucid explanation.
Outside the school, a guard, a woman walking with a
child, and an emaciated beggar draw your attention.
The painting is signed by Dharmadasa, a master
artist who painted four of the illustrated pages.
The focus is easier in a second painting, "To the
Surprise of Alexander, Kanifu Sheds Her Armor." In
this scene, taken from a poem that narrates the life of
Alexander the Great, Kanifu, a Chinese warrior
defeated in battle by Alexander, is led before the
conqueror. His officers start to strip the armor from
the defeated soldier only to discover that the warrior
is a woman. "It has been foretold," she informs
Alexander, "that my conqueror will become my
husband."
Alexander looks somewhat puzzled at the
submissive woman while his courtiers dash around
spreading news about the surprise. The animated
scene takes place in a luxurious palace with a lush
garden that reveals mountains and a large city in the
distance. The illustrated page is not signed but is
attributed to the artist Sanvala, who painted three
other pages as well. None of the other 11 artists