16 September 2025
Kristina Sanne
Indian miniature painting, delicate in form yet vast in cultural resonance, traces its origins to the illuminated manuscripts of the 9th and 10th centuries. Initially developed to accompany sacred Jain and Buddhist texts, these small-scale works were not meant for display but for intimate contemplation.
The paintings, rendered on palm leaves and later on paper, combined sharp outlines with bold mineral pigments, communicating spiritual narratives with striking clarity.
The golden age of miniature painting flourished under the Mughals in the 16th and 17th centuries. When Emperor Humayun returned from exile in Persia, he brought with him Persian master painters, who merged their refined aesthetic with Indian sensibilities. The result was an extraordinary visual language: naturalistic portraits, courtly scenes, and detailed studies of flora and fauna, all imbued with jewel-like colour and exquisite precision.
The Mughal atelier became a crucible of cultural synthesis. Works such as the Akbarnama (the chronicle of Emperor Akbar’s reign) combined narrative sweep with minute detail, celebrating both imperial grandeur and the rhythms of daily life. These images, though miniature in scale, encompassed entire worlds.
As Mughal patronage waned, miniature traditions blossomed in regional courts, each cultivating its own distinctive idiom. In Rajasthan, the Rajput schools of Jaipur, Mewar, and Kishangarh turned to epics and devotional themes. Their paintings were lyrical, suffused with brilliant reds, golds, and greens, and often depicted lovers in moonlit landscapes or gods in cosmic play.
In contrast, the Pahari schools of the Himalayan foothills developed a softer palette and lyrical sensibility. The celebrated Kangra style, in particular, expressed the emotional depth of devotional poetry, the longing of Radha for Krishna captured with tender nuance. These regional schools ensured that miniature painting remained not only a courtly art but also a vehicle for personal devotion and local identity.
Miniature painting was, and remains, a demanding craft. Artists prepared handmade paper or vellum with burnished surfaces. Pigments were ground from semi-precious stones, plants, and minerals: lapis lazuli for blue, malachite for green, and crushed pearls for luminous whites. Brushes, often tipped with a single squirrel hair, allowed for an astonishing precision, the rendering of a single eyelash, the patterning of a textile, or the veins of a leaf.
With the advent of colonialism and the collapse of princely courts, the patronage system that had sustained miniature painting dwindled. By the 19th century, photography and Western painting styles eclipsed the form. Yet, in the 20th century, the nationalist movement and a growing global interest in South Asian art spurred a revival. Miniatures began to be collected by museums and connoisseurs, recognised not merely as artifacts of a bygone era but as enduring expressions of India’s cultural imagination.
