Deccani art’s syncretism strings well at National Museum show

‘Nauras’ unveils cultural zenith of 16th-19th CE southern sultanates

New Delhi, Mar 2: The size may not merit special attention, but the figures in it definitely do. For, the 89cm x 74cm Kalamkari work throws light on the region’s cosmopolitanism at the peak of its glory.

Painted with painstaking care, it shows a fanciful palace where a ruler in Persian clothes accepts wine from a woman in a European hat. As if jostling for space in the collage, Armenians, Chinese, Turks and Iranians stage an appearance in the garden and a yogi inspects a pineapple.

Ajaib al Makhluqat 

This 375-year-old artwork from Golconda typifies an amazing syncretism that once defined the Deccan’s socio-cultural fabric—now finding sharp expression at a milestone exhibition in the national capital. The show at National Museum (NM) unveils the richness of a cultural give-and-take southern India witnessed during the 16th to the 19th centuries, courtesy a whole range of interactions with people from different parts of the world.

Titled ‘Nauras: The Many Arts of the Deccan’ and co-organised by The Aesthetics Project,  the 53-day show mirrors the Deccani ethos that has largely remained unexplored because of an equally glorious and contemporaneous Mughal art.

The south’s eclecticism of those days was no less impressive. “Notice that it’s a pineapple that the yogi is holding,” points out Dr Preeti Bahadur, who has curated ‘Nauras’ along with fellow art historian Dr Kavita Singh of Jawaharlal Nehru University. “Now, pineapple was a new delectable those days, introduced to the Indians by the Portugese.”

If syncretism is a defining feature of Deccani art for four centuries towards the end of the medieval era, the ongoing exhibition is in itself the result of a grand get-together of institutions. For, besides NM (in consultation with The Aesthetics Project which is a platform of academics, artisans and performers exploring India’s art heritage), the show has a set of exhibits from National Gallery of Modern Art (NGMA) in the capital.

“We have never had such an exciting tie-up between a public, private and academic institution,” notes Dr Venu Vasudevan, Director-General of the 1949-founded NM. Highlighting Deccani cosmopolitanism, its singing sultans, perfumes, the Mughal Presence, trade goods and royal lineages, the show has been tastefully designed by actor-artist Oroon Das.

Figurative Huqqa Base with Scenes from the Padmavat

At the six-section ‘Nauras’ which displays more than 120 objects, as if in contrast to the curious Kalamkari work, is a temple hanging further ahead of the gallery. Measuring a longish 34ft x 6.7ft and dating back to the Nayaka Period (of present-day, Karnataka/Tamil Nadu) of last quarter of the 18th century, it is a fine tapestry on cloth,  embroidered with cotton twisted threads and appliqué decoration.

If the Kalamkari work surfs over quite a few races of the globe by portraying their faces and attires, the temple hanging has its theme delving deeper into the Ramayana.

In the broad central panel, Rama and Sita are seated on a throne attended by sages and followers including Sugriva, Hanuman and others from the monkey army. Three panels on either side show other witnesses to the coronation.

“The iconography of Rama, Sita, Brahma and Indra follow pan-Indian models, but the Narasimha evokes a local tradition,” notes Dr Singh, who is an associate professor at JNU’s School of Art and Aesthetics. “Brahma, Indra and the guardians stand under cusped arches that are derived from Sultanate buildings.”

So, what is NGMA’s contribution to ‘Nauras’? It’s a line-up of critically admired Ragamala paintings. A colourful and intricate series of 22 folios, their aesthetics trace to the 18th-century art of northern Deccan. “Effectively, they are a garland of ragas, as they depict the various musical modes that have a relation with seasons as well,” notes Dr Bahadur, who is also an author.

The exhibition also features another set of Ragamala paintings—a 27-folio set from NM reserves.

Equally interesting is the Ajaib-al-Makhluqat which is on display. It is an Arabic compendium on astronomy and natural history composed in the 13th century by Iranian scholar Zakaria bin Muhammad Al Qazwini. Meaning ‘Wonders of Creation’, it describes rare creatures and phenomena on heaven and on earth, based on observation, astronomy, astrology, occult and hearsay.

Revealing further on Islam’s Shiite stream that the Deccani sultanates had declared as their religion is the Alam Standard. Cast in brass and bearing inscriptions on it, the late 18th-century finial is typically placed on the top of the pole draped with banners carried in the Muharram procession.

Nauras also gives individual glimpse at a certain heroic African in the Deccan. There is a 17th-century CE portrait of Malik Ambar, an Abyssynian brought to the southern India as a slave before he went on to become the prime minister of Ahmednagar and successfully led a resistance against the Mughals.

Ragaputra Deshakha

Given that Andhra region became a major belt of tobacco production, thehuqqa was manufactured in the peninsula, from where the equipment for smoking travelled to the north. A look at one section can reveal how finehuqqa bases made of bidri ware were a specialty of Deccani metalwork in which silver and sometimes gold are inlaid in zinc alloy.

Another cynosure is the pichhawai or painted backdrop that is placed behind the icon of Krishna Srinathji. At Nauras is a special kind of pichhwai, extensively coloured with gold leaf. The two-century-old artwork shows the thunderous clouds of a monsoon sky, under which gopis flank a kadamba tree. The Vallabhacharya cult that patronised Krishna Srinathji and commissioned such Pichcwais in the Deccan, were actually Gujarati merchants who had settled down in the region.

Calligraphy with marbled border is another artefact of viewer curiosity.  Scripted in Naksh on a paper of 36x32 cm, the 17th-century Arabic text has extracts from a famous Arabic poem in praise of the Prophet, his daughter Fatima, cousin and son-in-law Ali, and grandsons Hasan and Husain. The interesting feature is a broad border that is made by floating colours on water, using a paper to pick up the swirling patterns, a technique of marbling that reached its peak in the Deccan.

One can also view one of the rarest and most complex examples of marbling that come from Bijapur. The painting portrays Rustom, the hero of the Persian epic Shah-nama capturing the horse Raksh. In Bijapur, marbled paintings were made by applying a resistant gum to the areas that were not to be marbled; afterwards, this was scraped away and details were added by brush.

The exhibition also shows the Al-Buraaq, which is a composite creature believed to be the steed of Prophet Mohammed for his flight to paradise.

If Deccani arms and armour gained popularity among the Mughals, as a result of Aurangzeb’s incursions and rule in this region, then Naurasshowcases his metal armous, Shamshir sword, the Khanjar and the Jambia daggers with the name of the king inscribed.