section_path: Painting styles/Indian/Miniature painting
section_name: Miniature painting
paragraph_text: Miniature painting
  
  Miniature paintings were the primary form of painting in pre-colonial India. These were done on a special paper (known as wasli) using mineral and natural colours. Miniature painting is not one style but a group of several styles of schools of painting such as Mughal, Pahari, Rajasthani, Company style etc.
  
  Mughal miniature painting is a particular style of South Asian, particularly North Indian (more specifically, modern day India and Pakistan), painting confined to miniatures either as book illustrations or as single works to be kept in albums (muraqqa). It emerged from Persian miniature painting (itself partly of Chinese origin) and developed in the court of the Mughal Empire of the 16th to 18th centuries. Mughal painting immediately took a much greater interest in realistic portraiture than was typical of Persian miniatures. Animals and plants were the main subject of many miniatures for albums, and were more realistically depicted.
  
  Rajasthani painting evolved and flourished in the royal courts of Rajputana in northern India, mainly during the 17th century. Artists trained in the tradition of the Mughal miniature were dispersed from the
  
  imperial Mughal court, and developed styles also drawing from local traditions of painting, especially those illustrating the Sanskrit Epics, the Mahabharata and Ramayana. Subjects varied, but portraits of the ruling family, often engaged in hunting or their daily activities, were generally popular, as were narrative scenes from the epics or Hindu mythology, as well as some genre scenes of landscapes, and humans. Punjab Hills or Pahari painting of which Kangra, Guller, Basholi were major sub-styles. Kangra painting is the pictorial art of Kangra, named after Kangra, Himachal Pradesh, a former princely state, which patronized the art. It became prevalent with the fading of Basohli school of painting in mid-18th century. The focal theme of Kangra painting is Shringar (the erotic sentiment). The subjects are seen in Kangra painting exhibit the taste and the traits of the lifestyle of the society of that period. The artists adopted themes from the love poetry of Jayadeva and Keshav Das who wrote ecstatically of the love of Radha and Krishna with Bhakti being the driving force.
  
  Company style is a term for a hybrid Indo-European style of paintings made in India by Indian artists, many of whom worked for European patrons in the British East India Company or other foreign Companies in the 18th and 19th centuries. Three distinct styles of Company Painting emerged in three British Power Centres – Delhi, Calcutta and Madras. The subject matter of company paintings made for western patrons was often documentary rather than imaginative, and as a consequence, the Indian artists were required to adopt a more naturalistic approach to painting than had traditionally been usual.
  
  The Sikh style and Deccan style are other prominent Miniature painting styles of India.