Early 17th to mid 19th century · Hill states of the lower Himalaya, from Jammu to Garhwal: Basohli, Guler, Kangra, Chamba, Mandi, Nurpur and others
Pahari painting
Painting from the small hill kingdoms of the western Himalayan foothills, from the hot, bold Basohli manner to the soft Kangra style. Its great subject is Radha and Krishna, and one family of painters shaped most of it.
How to recognise it
- Basohli: intense colour, hard line, little interest in depth
- Kangra: cooler colour, delicate line, figures set into their surroundings
- Green slopes dotted with trees, rolling back to rounded hills and a blue sky
- Radha and Krishna, the Gita Govinda, Bhagavata Purana and Ramayana
- Portraits of the hill rajas, from the early 17th century onward
Pahari means “of the hills”. The word covers painting from a string of small courts between Jammu and Garhwal. Portraits of hill rulers begin in the first quarter of the 17th century; the first known is of Raja Jagat Singh of Nurpur. Raja Bhupat Pal of Basohli was Jahangir’s prisoner from 1613 to 1627, and probably saw Mughal painting there. Painting appears first in his state.
The early Basohli manner is intense: strong line, hot colour, flat grounds. In the 18th century lines softened, colour cooled, and painters began to care about space and volume. The change came through one family from Guler: Pandit Seu and his sons Manaku and Nainsukh. Seu and Manaku grew out of the Basohli manner; Nainsukh brought Mughal naturalism to the hills and seems to have invented the classic Pahari landscape, and even Manaku came round to his brother’s way of working. Nainsukh’s sons, Manaku’s sons and their sons worked for Basohli, Chamba, Guler, Jammu, Kangra and other states. The Gita Govinda, Bhagavata Purana and Ramayana sets made by the generation after Manaku and Nainsukh are counted among the most beautiful of all Indian paintings.
That family style is what is now called Kangra. Garhwal had its own painter-poet, Mola Ram. In Chamba, descendants of a hereditary painter family, the Manikanths, still paint.
What to look for
First decide which world you are in, Basohli or Kangra; once you have seen both, the difference is obvious. In Kangra-style work, look at how easily the figures sit in their landscape or architecture. Later 19th-century pictures in the style often repeat the formula, sweetly and without much life.
