“Why Rajput paintings look the way that they do” is the enormous concept that Molly Emma Aitken addresses in The Intelligence of Tradition in Rajput Court Painting. Fortunately for readers entering into her innovative and complex thinking, Aitken is especially gifted in her word choice, graphically evocative, and the book is filled with well-reproduced images of stunning Rajput paintings. Her descriptions of the paintings and the artists who produced them give both the seasoned scholar and uninitiated reader a series of intriguing ideas to ponder.

Aitken’s premise is concisely explained in her introduction: conventions used in Rajput painting were purposefully developed; painters made choices based on intent. As she posits, much past analysis by scholars of Indian painting has juxtaposed “a simple, archaic aesthetic [Rajput painting] against a technically advanced idiom [Mughal painting]” (11). It is Aitken’s contention that Rajput painters were skilled in their own aesthetic, taking what they deemed useful from Mughal painting and rejecting those elements that did not fit into their vision. It was not a question of ability—the Rajput painters were able to paint in any style that they chose—it was a question of choice.

Romantic texts and religious devotional subjects, core Rajput painting themes, were conceptually different from historical subjects or portraits, the mainstay of Mughal paintings. Rajput painters devised a visual description for these paintings that carried emotional content, which was not a dominant theme in Mughal painting. What emerged was a method that included a condensation of time within a single picture plane, a method that intensified emotional content, and repetition to emphasize the importance of the narrative. The repetition could be within a single painting, depicting more than one moment in time, or the repetition could be of an entire composition, repeated within one studio or emulated by other court ateliers.

One way to depict multiple views was through compartmentalization, a technique used particularly in Mewar painting of the seventeenth century. Aitken suggests (28) that this was similar to isolating a sculptural image of a deity within the shrine of a temple. The use of red to frame the image in a painting achieved a parallel purpose: stressing the iconic character of the deity. Another technique used to depict multiple views and to condense time was to illustrate the same figure performing multiple tasks in the same painting. This resulted in representing mental, rather than physical, space (50). Since these paintings were meant for a viewer who was expected to engage emotionally and psychologically with the subject matter, the numerous repetitions provided additional avenues for connection. Aitken asserts that use of compartmentalization and repetition were formal choices made by the artists to achieve specific goals, and not the inability to adopt Mughal sensibilities.

Aitken’s first chapter lays the foundation for the subsequent ones, which explore particular examples of her thesis by showing visual elements that were intentionally included and the objectives behind this usage and patterns that emerge from the artists’ and patrons’ choices. She first tackles the complex problem of style, as often defined by Western art historians. She posits that to the Rajput viewer and artist content was the broader driving force, and in fact the requirements of content determined Rajput “style.” She uses as an example Mewar court painting done during the first nine decades of the seventeenth century. No matter the raja/patron, the visual impact and appearance of the paintings remained consistent—flat surfaces with little or no perspective, many with the use of compartmentalization, and the dominating controlled palette of primary colors, red, yellow, and green.

During these nine decades, training in the established court style was the way a painter learned his craft. The training perpetuated the preferred “look” of the court. Those past conventions suited the patrons, suited the power structure that viewed these paintings, and they were crucial for the success of the painter. Artists did not challenge or change the “look,” but rather chose to emulate and repeat the conventions in which they were trained and which they considered crucial to the visual experience. As Aitken writes: “Ultimately to shift from one style to another would have been like switching from one community, one history, one lineage [silsilah] of painting masters, and one dynasty of patrons to another” (102).

In the last decade of the century, a new ruler was crowned Rana at Udaipur, the capital of Mewar state, and emerged as an innovative patron. During his short reign from 1698 to 1710, Rana Amar Singh II dramatically altered the established visual expression of court portraiture, but also other forms of paintings done by Mewar artists. Once the impact of traditional training is understood, it is possible to better appreciate the seismic change that Rana Amar Singh II introduced, transforming the “look” of Mewar court painting. Aitken discusses whether style, i.e. the distinct “look” of Rajput, and particularly Amar Singh, paintings (57), which has such meaning to art historians today, had any meaning at the time paintings were made. Aitkin’s conclusion grants “the painter a high level of premeditation and intellectual purpose . . . [signaling] consciousness of formal choice” (108).

In chapter 3, on portraiture, Aitken expands on the use of images of rulers, by far the most popular subject in Indian painting, to show the perfection of the ruler, the excellence of his kingdom, and his role in achieving that level of distinction (111). In Mewar especially, the monetary value, in the form of a kimat number, was placed on the reverse of many paintings. Aitken discusses how portraits were continually valued at a higher amount than other genres, reflecting the importance of the ruling individual and his image within the community. She takes this idea of value a step further, discussing the use of portraits within the royal custom of gift-giving between rulers of different states and between rulers and their nobility.

Just as Aitken focused on Rana Amar Singh II earlier, her last chapter is devoted to another individual, the Mewar artist Chokha, as she discusses his ability to work within a tradition and at the same time expand it by adding his own innovations, such as stippling to create volume and character.

One matter needs clarification. Aitken has referred to an album of paintings (91) I published (Catherine Glynn, “Evidence of Royal Painting for the Amber Court,” Artibus Asiae 56, no. 2 (1996): 67–93; Catherine Glynn and Ellen Smart, “A Mughal Icon Re-examined,” Artibus Asiae 57, no. 2 (1997): 5–15; Catherine Glynn, “A Rajasthani Princely Album: Rajput Patronage of Mughal-style Painting,” Artibus Asiae 60, no. 3 (2000): 222–64), mostly portraits, called the Amber Album, and illustrates a page from it as figure 2.34. That album contains both Mughal and Rajput styles of painting. Aitken describes paintings from an album with gold script as being a part of that Amber Album. Aitken may have confused the Amber Album, some pages of which did in fact end up in the Mewar Royal collection, with this second album that is yet to be studied in its entirety. This second album, which this reviewer will call the Gold Script album for clarity, also contains both Mughal and Rajput paintings. A distinguishing feature of this second album but not usually part of the Amber Album is a neat, gold Devanagari script naming the subject, usually placed on the lower unadorned border; in contrast, the Amber Album borders are filled with gold flowers or designs. Aitken correctly identifies this script as a Mewar script, specifically identifying it with that of Rana Sangram Singh II’s (r. 1711–1734) official scribes. Both albums have Mewar connections, and both albums contain a mixture of Mughal pictures and Rajput paintings done in a Mughalized style, but they are two different albums with disparate sizes and different border treatments.

Aitken’s conclusion brings readers through the nineteenth century to contemporary South Asian painting, arguing that Mewar painting of the mid-nineteenth century contained many elements that could have been termed “modern” while still retaining their inherent Indianness (288). Yet, Aitken says, the new arbiters of “modern taste” such as Abnindranath Tagore and his circle ignored Mewar antecedents. “Existing traditions [at Mewar] evolving in conversations with colonial art were not seriously considered for the possibilities they might offer” (290). Aitken finishes her multi-century analysis by discussing contemporary South Asian artists such as Saira Wasim and Shazia Sikander and their relationship to the traditional Mughal and Rajput styles of painting. Both artists use the format and related figure types found in traditional Indian painting as a model for their own creative work. Her discussion is a fitting end for this comprehensive analysis.