Kamāl ud-Dīn Behzād – Persian painter

He was born in 1450 and lived most of his life in Herat, a city in modern-day western Afghanistan and an important center of trade and the Timurid Empire's cultural and economic capital. He died in 1535 in Herat (Safavid Empire), Afghanistan.

Kamāl ud-Dīn Behzād, also known as Kamal al-din Bihzad or Kamaleddin Behzad, was a Persian painter, proverbial for his skill, active in Herat during the reign of the Timurid Ḥosayn Bāyqarā (875-912/1470-1506).

Orphaned at an early age, he was raised in the city of Herāt by the painter Mīrak Naqqāsh, who enjoyed the patronage of the Timurid princes who ruled the city. Behzād studied under his guardian and in 1486 became head of the Herāt academy, a post he held until 1506.

He was very prominent in his role as a director of a workshop in the Herat Academy as well as his position in the Royal Library in the city of Herat.

Behzad's fame reached its zenith during this period. A fable states that during the Battle of Chaldiran in 1514, in which the Ottoman Turks defeated the Persian army, Shah Ismail I hid Behzad in a cave as a treasure.

His art includes masterful use of value and individuality of character, with one of his most famous pieces being "The Seduction of Yusuf”' from Sa'di's Bustan of 1488.
Kamāl ud-Dīn Behzād – Persian painter

Kamal-ud-din Bihzad - Construction of the fort of Kharnaq

India Mughal painting

The Mughal school was found by Akbar under whom it developed into a class of its own. The Mughal school of painting in India coincides with the period of Mughal dynasty.

During the reign of the Mughals in the mid-16th century, the subjects of miniature paintings included portraits, court scenes, flora and fauna. In the Rajput (in Rajasthan) and Pahari (in the Punjab hills) courts, the paintings continued to bring to life poetry, age old legends, religious mythology and the moods of love and changing seasons.

It was essentially a product of the Mughal court. In form and content, it happens to be a departure from collective community tradition just as the Mauryan art was more than a millennium and a half before.

Mughal painting marks a unique a blending of Persian and Indian ideas. Mughal painting was essentially a court art, developed under the patronage of the ruling Mughal emperors and began to decline when the rulers lost interest.

Mughal artists due to new and more sophisticated techniques, learned both from Persian and European traditions. Pigments too contributed significantly to the distinctiveness of a style, fri contrast to pre-Mughal paintings, those of the Mughal and Rajput school reflect an enormous increase in the range of colors.

The subjects treated were generally secular, revolving around themes like battles, court scenes, receptions, legendary stories, hunting scenes, wildlife, portraits, and the likes.

The ancestral home of Mughal painting was originally in Samarkand and Herat where, under the Timurid kings in the fifteenth century, Persian art reached its zenith. An offshoot of Central Asian Art, the term, Indo-Persian, or more precisely, still, Indo-Timurid, is regarded by some authorities as a more suitable name for this particular development of Indian painting.

It was under Jahangir that Mughal painting attained its greatest perfection. Jahangir constantly refers to the court painters in his memories and mentions the valuable presents and the honors which he bestowed upon them.
India Mughal painting