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Hanuman Paying Homage to Rama: Folio from a Dasavatara Series
Not on view
Sparse pictorial details and intense yellow backgrounds lend an iconic quality to the works of the Master at the Court of Mankot. This scene most probably comes from a series on the descent of the god Vishnu (dasavatara), in which Rama appears as a just ruler. Seated with his consort on a lotus-blossom throne, Rama is venerated by the monkey general Hanuman and to the right is attended by Lakshmana, his brother and constant companion throughout their adventures and trials in the epic Ramayana. The artist eschewed the sense of movement he so skillfully employed in the Bhagavata Purana paintings, the objective being to depict Rama’s majesty rather than visually narrate the text. Visible in the gold areas are depressions (suikari) that were made with a blunt needle to capture light, so enriching the picture surface.
About the Artist
Master at the Court of Mankot (Meju)
Active ca. 1680–1730
The name of the painter who worked at the court of Raja Mahipat Dev (r. 1660–90) of Mankot at the end of the seventeeth century is only known from a single source, one portrait of a local ruler that bears the name Meju. It is thanks to another coincidence that one can place this artist in the village of Mankot, in Himachal Pradesh. Although numerous works from the descendants of the Mankot princes survive and point to the ongoing existence of painting workshops there, it is only the letter to Raja Mahipat Dev discovered on the back of a picture that provides definite proof of the location of the school associated with the painter Meju. The link between painter, patron, and court was established by a discarded letter that had been employed to line and strengthen a painting. Sheets of paper used for artist’s sketches were routinely used for lining paintings.
Meju made numerous portraits and illustrations for both sacred texts and musical modes (ragamalas). Characteristic of his work are the monochromatic backgrounds — mainly olive-green and yellow-orange — the reduction of pictorial detail to only what is absolutely necessary for the narrative, and the use of strong dominant colors throughout. These elements are particularly visible in his two series on the Bhagavata Purana. The landscape-format series, probably the earlier of the two, shows the main protagonist, Krishna, repeated in a monochromatic landscape, either playing with the gopis or battling evil in the form of demons. The later vertical series essentially takes over this arrangement of the preceding one, but the artist was forced to abandon certain pictorial elements for spatial reasons. In both series, Meju extended architectural elements or figures beyond the picture’s border. By breaking out of the composition’s frame, the artist suggested the possibility of action beyond the limits of a particular picture.
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