Visual harmony

George Michell's book on Mughal art reveals the cohesiveness of their artistic vision..

He may refer to the Mughal art style "" using a borrowed expression "" as an embarrassment of riches. But the truth is, George Michell admits, there can never be too much of a good thing. "Where there is wealth and access to the finest resources, combined with a desire to display personal taste, there is always a chance to make the most beautiful things," he says.

And the Mughals most certainly did create a stunning (albeit excessive) physical world around themselves. It is this decorative magnificence manifested in all aspects of their life that Michell throws the spotlight on in his illustrated book "" Mughal Style: The Art and Architecture of Islamic India. At first glance it seems an academic exercise in cataloguing design, but the book aims for a wider audience. It does document (rather thoroughly), but it's not intended to be an encyclopedia. It is a book with beautiful visual elements that should appeal to anyone who has an interest in the decorative arts.

Dipping into the finest pieces of the period from public and private collections in India, Europe, the USA and Kuwait, and of course from the monumental buildings that remain "" such as the arabesque design of Akbar's tomb vault "" the book highlights the Mughal dynasty's dedication to, and pride in the execution of exquisitely crafted objects of beauty.

Adding to the tedium of research was that collections in India, which make up a third of the catalogue, are not the best documented. "Pictorial research was crucial to the book and it was quite expensive to send our photographer from Salar Jung (Hyderabad) to Calico (Ahmedabad) to National Museum (Delhi)," says Michell.

An archaeological historian who is a trained architect, it would have come naturally for Michell to concern himself specifically with Mughal architecture. "But there's no dearth of literature," he says, "on the world of the Mughals; books that deal with only with the literature of the period or the architecture or the miniature paintings." So he decided to explore "the remarkable unity" realised through each of these manifestations. In that sense Michell concerns himself not with the gilded hookah bowls or the inlaid sword hilts or even the sheesh mahals but in the spectacular cohesion of artistic vision between them all.

Key to analysing this style was examining its inheritance of influences. One learns to isolate Central Asian influences from Persian, and to notice the unmistakable Indian interpretation. In most cases there is a fusion of practices, like the mottled deep-red sandstone cladding "" so representative of Mughal style "" that was indigenously found but modified with multicoloured contrasts of marble and coloured stones using Central Asian and Persian models of masonry. Or the Mughal miniature painting style that combined calligraphic compositions and arabesque motifs "that remained close to Persian pictorial precedent" even as the flowers, animals and birds "are animated by a naturalism that is quintessentially Indian".

The visual harmony, as Michell sees it, was brought by certain dominant themes. So while the book does dabble in materials and colours, it is thematic exploration that it primarily concerns itself with "" from the mathematically regulated geometric configurations of polygons and multi-pointed stars to opulent arabesque motifs, fluid calligraphy, and representation of animals and birds despite prohibition by Islamic orthodoxy.

Michell even restrains the historian in himself; emperors' histories are presented concisely, and only in relation to their impact on the aesthetic tradition. So one learns that it was Babar who set the standards for the dynasty to become the greatest patron of the arts, or that Akbar's fondness for illustrated books was partly because he had difficulty reading.

Michell says he wasn't at all tempted to biographise. "I wanted the visual materials to do the talking." So don't expect any gossip, alluding to the imperial karkhanas being centres of ruthlessness and so on. "In fact," says Michell, "the workshops were a great exercise in religious tolerance because the workshops were filled with artisans from all faiths who flocked to the Mughal courts where they'd be rewarded more than fairly, and if talented, achieve great fame."

What the book really is, is a visual indulgence. That, and a reminder of just how enduring and universal a visual idiom the Mughal style has become.