painting infuse the settings with hot passion. But it is the treatment of
the feminine form which charges the pictures with sophisticated charm. The
large breasts, the sweeping dip in the back, the proud curve of the
haunches, the agitated jutting-out of the skirts, all these convey an air
of vivid sensual charm. That Radha and Krishna should be portrayed in so
civilized a manner is evidence of the power which the Krishna story had
come to exercise on courtly minds. Krishna is portrayed not as God but as
the most elegant of lovers, Radha and the cowgirls as the very embodiment
of fashionable women.

Jaunpur painting does not seem to have survived the sixteenth century and
for our next illustrations of the theme, we must turn to the school of
painting fostered by the Mughals. During the sixteenth century at least
three Muslim states other than Jaunpur itself had possessed schools of
painting--Malwa in Central India and Bijapur and Ahmadnagar in the Deccan.
Their styles can best be regarded as Indian offshoots of a Persian mode of
painting which was current in the Persian province of Shiraz in about the
year 1500. In this style, known as Turkman, the flat figures of previous
Persian painting were set in landscapes of rich and glowing herbage,
plants and trees being rendered with wild and primitive vigour. In each
case the style was probably brought to India by Persian artists who
communicated it to Indian painters or themselves adjusted it to local
conditions. And it is this process which was repeated but on an altogether
grander scale by the Muslim dynasty of the Mughals. Under the emperor
Akbar (1556-1605), the Mughals absorbed the greater part of Northern
India, concentrating in one imperial court more power and wealth than had
probably been amassed at any previous time in India. Among Akbar's
cultural institutions was a great imperial library for which a colony of
artists was employed in illustrating manuscripts in Persian. The founders
of this colony were Persian and it is once again a local style of Persian