Sultans Of Deccam India, 1500-1700 :
Opulence and Fantasy Metropolitan Museum New York

Uma Nair

The magnifi cent museum Sultans who ruled the Deccan in the middle ages, prided themselves on attracting the best available literary and artistic talent to their courts, even as they kept an eye on cultural developments in Islamic lands. Among scholars poets and artists welcomed each year, from Turkey and Arabis, were calligraphers, who worked alongside scribes and artisans to create both architectural inscriptions and illuminated manuscripts for the royal libraries.

“Sultans of Deccan India, 1500-1700: Opulence and Fantasy,” is a landmark exhibition at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. At times esoteric, at times elegant in the manner of the beauty and eternal essence of all that was culturally cohesive and unendingly beautiful, in Islamic lifestyles –the show is a paean to the past and the echoes the emptiness of our selfi sh lifestyles in the present. In many ways this is indeed the most comprehensive show yet to focus on the cosmopolitan Muslim kingdoms that ruled the verdant Deccan Plateau of south-central India for nearly two centuries, fostering a turbulent golden age.

Th e 200 objects here include exquisite examples of metalwork, textiles, calligraphy, jewels, carved stone and, most signifi cantly, around 70 — or about one-third — of the known miniature paintings from this period of Deccani history, among
them a very high percentage of masterpieces. A Parrot Perched on a Mango Tree with a Ram tethered below is a prime example of the power of art at a time when they had no idea of modernism and its momentuous moods. Th e size of the parrot, its magnifi ed magnifi cence and the placing of its perch within the fl owering mango tree is a brilliant example of the thriving art practices of that time. Th e colours used talk to us about the power of plentiful robust sensibilities.