Deccani Painting

Deccani painting, style of miniature painting that flourished from the late 16th century among the Deccani sultanates in peninsular India. The style is a sensitive, highly integrated blend of indigenous and foreign art forms. The elongated figures are seemingly related to Vijayanagar wall paintings, while the floral-sprigged backgrounds, high horizons, and general use of landscape show Persian influence. Deccani colours are rich and luminous, and much use is made of gold and white.

The earliest dated manuscript, the Nujūm-ul-ʿulūm of 1570 (“The Stars of the Sciences”; now in the Chester Beatty Library, Dublin), appears to be a product of Bijāpur, which continued to be one of the principal centres of the style. There, painting, as well as the other arts, was greatly stimulated by the patronage of Ibrāhīm ʿĀdil Shāh II (1580–1627), who was passionately fond of music and the arts and of whom several splendid contemporary portraits exist. Other important centres were Ahmadnagar, Golconda, and—during the 18th century—Aurangābād and Hyderābād.

From the 17th century onward, the Mughal schools of the north and the Deccani schools had a certain amount of influence on one another. Deccani art also had its effect on the development of miniature painting in the Hindu courts of Rājasthān and central India.