Lalit Gupta
After the fall of Babbapur, Jammu, which is said to have been founded in the 14th century by Maldev, became a regional seat of power and one of the most powerful hill states during the 17th and 18th centuries under the rulers like Gajai Dev, Dhruv Dev, and Ranjit Dev.
The patronage of these rulers attracted a large number of artists to the court of Jammu and subordinate courts of its numerous tributaries like Mankot, Basohli, Jasrota, Bhoti, Reasi, and Akhnoor. As a result, these sub-schools also adopted the Jammu style with slight variations. The centers of painting which flowered during the 17th century were Jammu, Mankot, and Basohli.
The sudden outburst of creative styles of Pahari miniatures in Jammu and its subordinate courts during the 17th century is linked to two factors. One is that most of the hill chiefs from the days of sultans of Delhi had come in contact with the imperial court of Delhi as its vassals, mansards, hostages, and rebel prisoners and sometimes spent more than a decade in the Delhi and Lahore Darbars. Like the Rajasthani chiefs had also adopted the fashions prevalent in the Mughal court, which got reflected in their buildings, and architectural decorations back home, and also the fashion of maintaining few artists in employment.
The other factor was that during the invasion of Delhi by Nadir Shah and subsequent raids by Durranis, and the unsettled conditions that followed in Delhi and Punjab, drove wealthy nobles and merchants as well as artists to take shelter in the well-administered territories of Dogra ruler Ranjit Dev of Jammu.
Notwithstanding the much-hyped theory of migration of artists to Hill courts, the presence of a great tradition of folk painting and wood carvings popular in the Jammu Hills, that was not only limited to the decoration of households, havelies, and mandapas of temples but informed even the humble architecture of houses of ordinary hill folks, is ample proof of the local origins of a style which led to the spurt in the 17th century of the miniature paintings at Jammu, Mankot, and Basohli. The Jammu paintings in the late 17th century are associated with a series of portraits done in primitive conventions such as overlarge heads, single overlapping planes, and employing for palette a combination of red and yellow with pallid white and grey.
The presently available examples of miniatures in Jammu hills date back to reign of Raja Hari Dev of Jammu and Mahipat Dev of Mankot, who were contemporaries of Aurangzeb. Mankot portrait tradition as seen in the paintings done under Mahipat Dev, especially the school of portraits though similar to the Mughal portraiture of the Shah Jahan period, already shows typical indigenous (local) use of flat planes, scorn of depth and perspective, and predilection for broad expanses of color.
The period of the consolidation of the Jammu Kalam is almost synonymous with the rule of Ranjit Dev who in order to safeguard his people and territories from the invasions of Afghan armed hordes, in a brilliant political move shifted his allegiance to Ahmed Shah Durrani in 1752, when Mughal Emperor ceded Punjab to Durani.
For the support which Ranjit Dev lent to Durrani in Punjab and the conquest of Kashmir, Ranjit Dev got many favors and was left free to administer his state which was soon called ‘Dar- ul-Aman’ which is the safe refuge. Many trade routes passing through Jammu hills, led to the affluence of the region and its rulers. Multani Begum, the widow of Mir Munnu, the governor of Lahore, had sought refuge in Jammu. The building in which she was housed was known till recent times as Bugum Ki Haveli. (present radio station building).
During this period the extensive patronage of Ranjit Dev and his younger brother Balwant Singh resulted in a renewed painting activity. Artists were received with kindness and liberal patronage was extended to them. It is said that in those days there used to be an artist workshop near Smadhian, near Tawi waterfront, Jammu, the cluster of temples erected in the memory of dead kings and queens.
Portraits of Ranjit Dev in the collection of the British Museum, London, and Bhuri Singh Museum, Chamba, which belong to this period, are marked with a simple and congenial atmosphere. The subject is shown talking leisurely with courtiers and others or playing affectionately with his grandchildren. These paintings which emerge as the characteristic work of Jammu school in mid 18th century are conspicuous for a kind of unique quality of informality of the setting, and moods which are quite natural and unassuming. This kind of naturalism emerges as the hallmark of the Jammu school of painting.
These paintings as well as dozens of paintings of Ranjit Dev’s younger brother Balwant Singh, were executed in a style removed from the grandeur of court life and marked by simple, broader planes, and subdued colors. More than 65 paintings of the Balwant Singh period, executed by the deft hands of the genius artist Nainsukh son of Pandit Seu, are biographical in nature. Which portrays him as involved in his hobbies of listening to music and singing, writing, hawking, and hunting. Nainsukh who has devotedly recorded the day-to-day activities of his patron shows him in various moods and activities; many times portraying him lonely and withdrawn.
Nainsukh who later went on to make a major contribution in shaping the lyrical and most romantic schools of miniature such as Kangra and Guler is associated with the golden age of Jammu Kalam when the genius in him under the learned patronage of Balwant Singh created a number of paintings that today are considered as masterpieces of Jammu Kalam.
Nainsukh who was a master draughtsman, made alive figures in full flesh, with just a few deftly drawn lines. He introduces dimension to flat figures by slight shading along the borders that separate the figures from the background or from other figures. This ‘shading’ seen in his works around the neck, below the chin, and around the collars of the jamas, of the human figure, create a convincing neutralism very essential for portraiture and which Nainsukh has extensively explored under the patronage of Balwant Singh.
This style of Jammu Kalam has been described by scholars as pre-Kangra, and it was the same style that was transplanted in other centers of hill paintings.
After the death of Balwant Singh in 1763, Nainsukh and his family migrated to Guler, leaving behind a number of artists in Jammu court. A number of portraits of Brij Raj Dev son of Ranjit Dev, who ruled from 1782, indicate the presence of artists in Jammu court. In the Jammu school, maximum stress was laid on portraits. Other than the portraits of Balwant Singh, many other personalities also figure in paintings which include Mian Tedhi, Mighiaalu Bhutia, Mian Kailashwati Bandrahl, Raja Hataf of Bandrahl.
After the Dev dynasty was deposed by Sikhs in 1816, Jammu was given as Jagir to Gulab Singh by Maharaja Ranjit Singh of Punjab in 1820. Under the patronage of Dogra rulers like Gulab Singh, the Jammu School continued to flourish. The exquisite murals beginning with the earliest surviving examples in the Raghunath Thakurdwara at Tandon Khu, on the bank of river Tawi at Jammu and datable to 1824, are one such instance which shows the evolution of the Jammu school of painting. These murals due to their format are more an offshoot of miniature art only.
Gulab Singh and his brothers Suchet Singh and Dhyan Singh, who once again consolidated the political sphere of Jammu Raj, brought back the former glory of Dogras and with it, Dogra art and architecture found a new patronage.
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