Previous Year Question

During the reign of Jahangir (1605–1627 CE), the emphasis in Mughal painting increasingly shifted from large illustrated manuscripts towards independent paintings, individual portraits and albums. Under Akbar, the illustration of major manuscripts such as the Hamzanama, Akbarnama and Razmnama had been particularly important. Jahangir, in contrast, gave greater encouragement to accurate individual likenesses and detailed, naturalistic representations of animals, birds, flowers and plants.

Jahangir himself was an exceptionally keen connoisseur of painting. In his Tuzuk-i-Jahangiri/Jahangirnama, he claimed that even when a painting did not bear the artist's name, he could identify the painter by the style; he could even distinguish the work of different artists when separate portions of the same painting had been executed by different hands. Under him, Bishan Das became renowned for portraiture, while Ustad Mansur specialised in animals, birds and natural subjects.

A characteristic feature of this period was the Muraqqa, an album in which independent paintings, portraits and specimens of calligraphy were mounted and collected together. Jahangir's celebrated Muraqqa-i-Gulshan or Gulshan Album is a major example of this tradition. The shift asked about in the question is therefore associated with Jahangir.