Mughal emperor jahangir images of butterflies

Exhibition showcases rare works of folios that have not been published. Some of these portraits were executed by major painters of the royal court, such as Ustad Mansur and Manohar, among the most famous Mughal artists of flora and fauna. Collection opens up research avenues to identify artists, styles and techniques, authenticity of works, years of production, issues of provenances and species of animals and plants.

What emerges from the exhibition is a representation of nature as seen by human beings. The first is the emperor Jahangir, who observed and collected the animals and birds as his prized possessions. The emperor is presented as the ruler of a just and orderly universe, which includes animals, both domesticated and wild, living together in harmony.

How do we view this image and the other portraits in our era of unprecedented extinction of animal, plant, and other nonhuman species because of excessive human activity? Some of the endangered species include the lesser flamingo bird and the mouflon sheep, whose portraits are part of the exhibition. Can we re-imagine nature without human alteration, such as the erosion of forests, and the hunting of wild animals?

Can we also re-think the relationship between humans and nonhumans, which is more equitable? The exhibition ponders over these questions, with the intention of looking afresh at the Jahangiri folios from the perspective of environmental balance, and preserving human-nonhuman inter-relational aesthetics and associations. The nonhuman can be defined in terms of animals, organic and geophysical systems, affectivitybodies, materiality, and technologies.

T hree reasons demand attention toward the nonhuman. The first is the need to challenge human exceptionalism in the age of the Anthropocene, the current era of climate change where human beings have played the dominant role in significantly altering the environment. The second is that most twenty-first century problems, such as climate change, drought, and famine, involve an engagement with the nonhuman.

Read more: Grusin, Richard, ed. The Nonhuman Turn. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, Jahangir was also fond of hunting birds, such as falcons and hawks, an interest that he frequently writes about in his memoir. The falcon, often presented as a gift to the Mughal king, was a popular subject of folios during the Jahangir period. A few of them have been attributed to the royal artist Ustad Mansur, including a folio from the collection of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston.

The falcon has been identified as gyrfalcona species of falcon that is one of the fastest animals on earth. The falcon received special attention at the Mughal court because it was mostly accompanied by its caretaker, the falconer, who was responsible for training the bird. He spotted the duck during his travels in Kashmir, and described its presence, in a garden, in poetic language.

The brownish neck of the duck, which is in the front, indicates that it is a female mallard, but its curved feathers are characteristic of its male counterpart. It looks like the artist has combined male and female characteristics in the same bird. Other references include the work of well-known artists Abanindranath Tagore and Ramkinkar Baij.

Tagore initiated the Bengal School of Art that contributed artistically to the Indian National Movement in the twentieth century.

Mughal emperor jahangir images of butterflies: The abundance of blooming flowers during

Baij was a modernist, who spent his creative life in the university town of Santiniketannear present-day Kolkata, India. Both the works were executed around the same time in the s, and belong to Sir Cowasji Jehangir Collection, which is named after the well-known patron of Indian art A lyricism characterizes this work because of the way the flamingos have balanced their bodies on slender legs, and the way their swirling necks indicate movement.

The artist has used a similar combination of pink and maroon to highlight the sky, and its possible reflection over the hills below, creating an ambience of sunset. Jahangir makes no mention of the white-breasted kingfisher in his biography, but the bird is found in parts of South Asia, including India, and it is also found in Israel, Iraq, Egypt, Europe, Thailand, and Sumatra.

As Jahangirnama does not include a reference to the bird, it is difficult to guess whether the bird in the Coswaji collection was sighted in India or gifted to Jahangir from foreign dignitaries visiting the Mughal court. The piece of flesh it has on its head resembles a cock's comb. The strange part about it is that when it is mating, the piece of flesh hangs down a span from its head like an elephant's trunk, but then when it pulls it up it stands erect a distance of two fingers like a rhinoceros' horn.

The area around its eyes is always turquoise-colored and never changes. When the Mughals founded an empire in Hindustan, they sought to legitimize their budding dynasty through diverse sources of power. In the texts and art produced by emperors and their courts during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, these performances of power constantly featured birds.

Birds, enfleshed and imagined, were used as motifs that positioned the Mughals as the cultural descendants of a long Islamic tradition of storytelling and spirituality. Wild and captive birds became an extension of the imperial court as emperors strove to model the legendary rule of King Solomon, who was renowned for his just power over all creatures.

During this age of scientist-kings, avians also became catalysts for experimentation and the production of knowledge.

Mughal emperor jahangir images of butterflies: Maharaja with Butterflies, by

This intricate relationship between birds and power reveals a Mughal conception of empire, defined by fluid boundaries between the human and animal kingdoms. The relation between human and animals and its association in our daily activity is unavoidable. From its representation as a visual element in calendar art to the logo design for a brand, animals are the most viewed object in literary and art works.

They play a very important role in understating the ecological efficacies to create an organised equilibrium in the nature. The notion of adopting animals as visual images has age old tradition in Indian mythology in prominent, which enriches the sacred texts of Hindu beliefs with narratives of greater wisdom and values through the characters like Hanuman-Monkey God as one of such portrayal.

The projections of presenting animal motifs in our art and culture infuse a sense of respect for the animals which crowns the Indian Art tradition from ancient to present time. The paper explores the presence of animals as visual motifs in the chronological development of Indian art in understanding the role of animals in our culture and tradition.

Bahulkar and Shilpa Sumant. Published in Goswamy, ed. Sharma and P. Kaimal, Mapin Publishing, Ahmedabad, East African scholars journal of education, humanities and literature, Log in with Facebook Log in with Google. Remember me on this computer.

Mughal emperor jahangir images of butterflies: This exhibition brings together

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Reproduction of any part of the contents of this document, by any means, needs the prior permission of the owners. The appearance of strange objects from unknown lands from tobacco to turkeys was often the first harbinger of the epochal changes that brought the New World of the Americas and the European trading empires into conflict with the vast territorial states of Asia.

The balance of world power was shifting. Three exceptions I can think of are Samuel P. Tweet Like this: Like Loading Type your email…. Continue reading. Like this: Like Loading London: I. Tauris, Beach, Milo Cleveland. Mughal and Rajput Painting. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, Blake, Stephen P. Das, Asok Kumar. Calcutta: Asiatic Society, Eraly, Abraham.

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