Page:Aurangzíb and the Decay of the Mughal Empire.djvu/100

94 as he chose. The Mughal Emperors displayed a laudable appreciation of the fine arts, which they employed with lavish hands in the decoration of their palaces.

'The arts in the Indies,' says Bernier, 'would long ago have lost their beauty and delicacy, if the Monarch and principal Omrahs did not keep in their pay a number of artists who work in their houses.' Yet there 'are ingenious men in every part of the Indies. Numerous are the instances of handsome pieces of workmanship made by persons destitute of tools, and who can scarcely be said to have received instruction from a master. Sometimes they imitate [alas!] so perfectly articles of European manufacture, that the difference between the original and the copy could hardly be discerned. Among other things the Indians make excellent muskets and fowling-pieces, and such beautiful gold ornaments that it may be doubted it the exquisite workmanship of those articles can be exceeded by any European goldsmith. I have often admired the beauty, softness. and delicacy of their paintings and miniatures. and was particularly struck with the exploits of Akbar, painted on a shield, by a celebrated artist, who is said to have been seven years in completing the picture. The Indian painters are chiefly deficient in just proportions, and in the expression of the face.'

The orthodox Mohammedan objection to the representation of living things had been overruled by Akbar, who is recorded to have expressed his views on painting in these words : –

'There are many that hate painting: but such men I dislike. it appears to me as if a painter had quite peculiar means of recognising God. For a painter in sketching anything that has life, and in devising its limbs one after the other,