Is Neo-Miniature Ethnic or Foreign Import

Miniature painting in its past has generally been regarded as a provincial variety of Persian paintings, but in our contemporary age its status has unfairly declined as a mere hybrid of East and West or Neo- Miniature. Modern artists are attempting to inculcate contemporary imagery and experimentation with its technique instead of just borrowing from or reproducing traditional work. This modern exploration has raised questions on the status of Neo-Miniature as ethnic or a foreign import. In order to understand what led us to this mind set, we need to study the history of miniature in our part of the world in its true sense of a progressive hybrid of myriad cultures from vast expanses of world, in particular, Ancient Indian, Persian, and Classical European; we should understand how as visual artists we have learned to interpret art as the reflecting image of its contemporary culture, and the modern realities under which an artist subsists and crave for artistic and monetary appreciation.

Mughal invasion of India and its establishment as a powerful dynasty of an essentially Persian culture meant that two radically different civilizations were brought into intimate contact. The stimulus of Persian masters and Persian technique awoke in Indian artists an ancient talent that had been gradually distancing itself from its classic standards. India. This specialized amalgamation of two distinct cultures of painting grew with apparent suddenness in the 16th century. Neither Hindus nor Muslims were aware of the unconscious similarities their paintings shared with the paintings of Christian Europe or Ancient Buddhism. Persian miniature taught much to the Indian painters, it enriched their palette and refined their line, but it left few permanent traces. In the late 16th and 17th century, Akbar and Jahangir both came into contact with Western painting, which from its very incipience seems to have aroused intense interest, particularly through the Portuguese Jesuits. Painters of that era were becoming increasingly inclined toward imitating and adopting European technique of painting [Contemporary Turkish painting shows very different results from European contacts]. It was during this time period in India when western conventions for literal representation of reality firmly made its appeal. Old tendency toward symmetry was not eliminated but desire to express depth and volume in painting was cultivated, a mixture of Persian grace and European freedom of drawing started to reveal its faint traces till closer contact with the West produced its inevitable results [The Faber Gallery of Oriental Art; Mughal Painting by J.V.S. Wilkinson]. By the 19th century, miniature painting in court ateliers was thoroughly undermined by a double-edged blow; the loss of Mughal patronage, and political deconstruction of indigenous art due to an imperialist cultural policy. Miniature painters took to Punjab hills or to Rajasthan in search for support among minor dynasties. In Alwar Patiala, the major Sikh kingdom of Punjab, a prominent family of Muslim miniaturists became forefathers to the first link in chain between workshop practice and Westernized education, and one of its eminent painters Ustad Haji Muhammad Sharif became the first official teacher of miniature painting in Mayo School of Art (later renamed as the National College of Art) in 1945.The NCA was originally established as an Arts and Crafts inspired school by the British in 1878, named Mayo school of Art after the Governor of Punjab. The hierarchic division between art and craft was “a device of maintaining power and stratification in colonial system,� [Nelson Graburn, ''Ethnic and Tourist Arts Revisited,'' in Phillips & Steiner, eds. Unpacking Culture (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1999)] and miniature painting continued as a subject of taxonomic shifts since the colonial period, maintaining its status as an artifact or fine art. This hybrid education arising from a fusion between traditional and post colonial art school training subsequently culminated in technical excellence and encouraged experiment [Karkhana; A Contemporary Collaboration].

History is about asking who are we in terms of our knowledge of ourselves, about inquiring into the political forces that shape us, and investigating the sense of relationship to ourselves; the ethical choices we make to govern these internal relationships. This means that history has to focus on tracing the effects of power in society (how it acts, who has access to it) [Foucault's history; Knowledge of Power]. Edward Said thinks that Orientalism is a Western style of domination reconstructing and having authority over the Orient [Orientalism by Edward Said (1978)]. Dominant class uses the arts, common sense, culture, custom, taste etc to maintain their hold on power. West via Orientalism represented the East as exotic, mysterious, distant, unknowable; as a way of controlling it [Orientalism;Introduction by Edward Said, p.1]. Critiques of Said's work (including those of Bernard Lewis and Aijaz Ahmad) have argued that Said's divide between East and West is too simplistic, that colonial exprience was more complicated and multifaceted, with more players and participants, than this binary divisions [Aijaz Ahmad, In Theory; Classes, Nations, Literatures and Benard Lewis, 'The Questions of Orientalism' Islam and West]. There's no one simple type of colonial exprience. Colonizers were also colonized some time in history.

Human subjects are formed by the social and cultural forces around them, and how they experience their lives in culture and society. People are simultaneous makers and consumers of culture, participating in that according to their place in economic and political structures [Stuart Hall; Marxist Cultural Analysis]. Art objects produce interpretations of the cultures they occupy, including the present, where they may exist as museum objects or reproductions [Mieke Bal, Quoting Caravaggio: Contemporary Art, Preposterous History].
It is a mistake to regard Neo-miniature painting as an individual/Pakistani style of painting or as a foreign import lacking roots or permanence. Questioning miniature paintings’ ethnicity is not only based on race, colonialism or nationalism but also due to an inherent lack of understanding on how this diverse and competitive art market works. Art is gauged with money and gold in this mathematical system. According Svetlana Alphers in 'Rembrandt's Enterprise: The studio and the Market (1988)' disregards Rembrandt's style, iconography, and the attribution of his works, and instead focuses on the organization of his studio as a business for the production of paintings and the strategies he used to market those paintings. Rembrandt was unique not only for his artistic skill but also because he used his paintings as a way to pay his debts: the paintings functioned essentially like currency. "In a communist society there are no painters but only people who engage in painting among other activities." [Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, The German Ideology in Collected Works, 1845-1847] Though in a capitalist society, art is essentially understood in terms of its exchange value in money, commodities, or symbolic capital (e.g. prestige). Artistic specialization results from the (capitalist) division of labor. Compared to Alphers arguements if we look into the Pakistani Art Market, the heightened awareness and interest in art is defined in terms of number of collectors and professionals are willing to pay the top drawer prices for art objects. Art, therefore, is not canonized in a capitalist society as a mysterious manifestation of genius but instead as an outgrowth of complex interaction between artists and patrons in the context of a particular cultural environment. As Hammad Nasar has stated, “Why can't artist doing good work make money in the process? No one criticizes the ambitions, success or earnings of other professionals so why begrudge artists a good reputation and income. Artists are also professionals after all.� [Artmart Inc; Nukta Art Magazine, 2008]

Sumbul Khan (teacher and art critic) says, “The Neo Miniature needs the semiotic reference to ‘miniature’to be recognized abroad as an ethnic and hence marketable category;� [Questioning Neo-Miniature; Nukta Art Magazine, 2008]. Most art historians and critics interpret art through their own cultural lens. So the first question which comes in mind is, what is ethnic? If the above refers to 'ethnic' as Pakistani then 'miniature' itself is not Pakistani, it constantly have borrowed from its history of influences and invaders. And if ‘ethnic’ refers to 'Orient' then we as Orients are participating in our own Orientalizing by 'self-othering' [Orientalism; The Latest Phase by Edward Said p.325]. Art cannot be closed in a box to retain its originality, it cannot be separated from its environment; it is a product of complex social, political, and economic relationships.

Art is widely affecting and is affected by religion, politics, social structures and hierarchies, cultural practices and traditions, intellectual currents, etc. Art only suffices as an immortal cultural object when it manages to successfully reflect the myriad mores of its contemporary society within the confines of its limited canvas. Fusion has been the primary source of evolution in arts all through its history; and similarly, modern global world is succinctly reflected in modern art through its successful integration of more distinct traditions and styles than ever before. Art cannot survive in an emotional vacuum, it has to survive and subsequently thrive within its infinite subject of contemporary culture, the anachronism of ‘art for arts sake’ has been rendered as redundant and incompatible to modern economic realities, an artist can put his art for sale and still manage to keep his soul pure and unpolluted by unnecessary starvation.