Gurdeep Kaur & Rohita Sharma
Department of Business and fine arts, Lovely Professional University, Phagwara, Punjab, India. Email. gurdeepkaur121@yahoo.in.
Volume 6, Number 3, 2016 I Full Text PDF
Article DOI: 10.21659/chitro.v6n3.08
Received December 06, 2016; Accepted December 19, 2016; Published January 26, 2017
Abstract
The scholars of Indian miniature painting observe the Sikh influences on Pahari miniature painting during Sikh dominancy but in actual, Sikhism and its associations with Hill aristocracy were very deep and prior then Maharaja Ranjit Singh and it should not be disremember that Lahore was one of the glorious art capital of Mughals in Punjab from the days of Emperor Akbar. So Sikhs were also not unaware of artistry and painting. Sikh paintings of 19th century reflect splendid lifestyle and fashion adopted by the Sikhs of Lahore during Sikh dominancy in Punjab Plains which reflected in the court paintings of Guler. But the study also focuses to grasp the Sikh lifestyle before, during and after Maharaja Ranjit Singh and its impact on the Rajput rulers of Guler as the results of Sikh-Rajput associations, which buried in Rajput culture of Guler; and later reflected precisely in paintings of Guler during 18th-19th century. The two different lifestyles under different cultures and ethos merged and influenced each other which reflected in surviving paintings. The study is based on data analysis and explorative method. The study concludes that Sikh lifestyle influenced imprecisely Rajput lifestyle in the beginning but with the expansion of Sikh power, it continuously increased till the last of nineteenth century A.D and emerged and reflected in later court paintings of Guler specifically.
Key words: Rajput, Guler, Lahore, dress, Sikh influence, lifestyle.