later Cola period and under fhe Pandyas (thirleenth Century)
they did not dare to alter the inner shrine because of its extreme
holiness, but enclosed it with new shrines, enclosing walls and
gate-towers, and the sculpture became elegant again, if still
conventional.
Atter the Mohammedan Invasion the Emperors of Vijayanagar
began a massive building programme. The temples vanished
behind still higher walls and gate-towers, the courtyards were
covered in and became halls. The pillars were replaced by
clustered columns and complicated pilasters covered with reliefs
of prancing beasts and mounfed men. The framework of building
became mulfi-storied. The wealth of sculpture is inexpressible, but
the classical mediaeval tradition dissolves more and more into
a most lively populär style. Painting, too, goes over to this
populär style between the fourteenth and sixteenth Century.
Somewhat later, a similar renaissance began in the re-liberated
Hindu States of norfhern India, but died out in the seventeenth
Century; in the eighteenth, the Marathas attempted a similar
revival of mediaeval arf.
Islamic art in the thirteenth Century was an offshoot of the richlydecorated
Samanadic-saljuq art of Persia and Turkistan. ln the
fourteenth a native style developed independent of Iran, characterised
by a fortress style, inclined walls and inlays of
coloured stone slabs. ln the fifteenth local slyles appeared, partly
adapted from Hindu arf (Kashmir, Gujarat, Bengal), partly
inspired by new fashions from Persia and Turkistan (Delhi,
Jaunpur, Malwa, Deccan), again with richly-cut Ornament and
also glazed tiles. We still, however, know exceptionally little
about the small-scale art of this period, and the Situation only
changes since the late sixteenth Century. After the greaf vicfory
over Vijayanagar in 1565 a new taste appeared in the Sultanates
of the Deccan, semi Hindu in form and feeling but varied by
influences from Arabia and Turkey. Painting, open to influences
from Mughal art, late Persia and Europe, was characterised by
a rhythmic line, a romanlic mood and a wealth of gilding.
Applied arf (Cat. 688; 693), semi-Hindu in style, loved elaborately
incised gold and gilding, ivory, and stuffs (pintados) painfed
with flowers or figures.
The Great Mughal Emperors were the first to infroduce the Safavidic
art of Persia, with its architecfure of many-coloured glazed
tiles and onion-shaped domes, its miniatures recalüng Chinese
calligraphy, and brocades woven with large flowers. The Emperor
Akbar (1556—1605) attempted to develop a syncrefist style
comprising elemenfs not only of the Persian, but also of all
Indian Islamic, even Hindu (Rajpuf) and European styles of his
time. The buildings, generally in red sandstone, fused Persian
vaulting and domes with Hindu balconies, roofs, columns, etc.,
covered with mulfi-coloured Indo-Islamic and Persian ornamentation.
The miniature paintings (Cat. 352 b to 366) remain faithful
to fhe Safavidic-Persian bird's-eye perspective but enrich ii
with figures in the Rajput style and a European naturalism. This
loving study of nature reached its peak under Akbar's son
Jahangir (1605—1627). An Imperial style first developed under
Shahjahan (1628—1658), exceptionally harmonious, the buildings
generally strictly symmetrical in white marble inlaid with precious
stones, the forms from Persian, Bengal and fhe Deccan, the
painting a mixfure of Rajpuf composition and European detaiied
technique, textiles in fragile white, gold and pasfel colours,
applied arf preferring jade, silver, crystal, etc., with decoration
dominated by flowers from Kashmir (tulips, narcissi, saffron, etc.).
In fhe troubied period which followed the building technique
became cheap (painted marble and stucco), the forms baroque
(the rhythm rounded and dynamically increased), the ornamenfation
cloying and restless, the colours garish. Painting became
romantic and stylised, mainly preoccupied with harem scenes. In
the field of applied arf appeared the Kashmir shawl, rieh applique
and tinsel work, iassels and fringes, long-poinfed shoes, enormous
water-pipes.
At the same time a new Hindu art came into being in the Hindu
States now owing tribute to the Great Mughal Emperors, especially
in Rajputana and the Himalayas. If originated from
mediaeval Hindu art, but had been simplified to the maximum
and then freely re-casf. The early Rajput architecfure (fourteenth
to seventeenth Century) is an asymmetric mixture of Islamic
arches and vaulting with plain Hindu columns, beams and roofs.
Sculpture and painting, originating in populär art, represented
figures in strict profile (as in ancient Egypt) and arranged them
in ranks; fhe background is only hinted at, the colours are bright,
the feeling expressionist.
In the seventeenth Century the Rajputs fook over much from
Mughal art; in the early eighteenth Century Rajput style becarne
a Mughal provincial style, but then Rajput art again went its
own way, the Mughal architecfure was re-interpreted as asymmetrical,
picked out with figure sculptures and paintings. The
painting replaced Mughal naturalism with flowing lines and
strongly contrasting colours, and Mughal realism by a romanti-
