Miniature Paintings

Miniature Paintings are diminutive work of art that are convoluted, vibrant and manually made art. The basic characteristic of miniature painting is that it is always small in size and is finished scrupulously by means of fragile coiffuring.

A miniature painting basically belongs to an ancient or medieval era.  These kinds of paintings are not restricted to a particular region, infact, it they are found throughout the world.

Colors used in making of miniature paintings have a special historical value because manufactured colors were not used at that time and colors

were extracted from mineral deposits, vegetables, gemstones, and sapphire, pearl, unadulterated gold and silver metal. Most number of miniature paintings has been found in India, mainly in, Royal forts depicting life at that time. Some of the paintings were based on melodic conventions (Ragas).

The most popular miniature paintings belong to Mughal period, Rajput period and the Art school of Deccan (Southern India), Pahari miniature paintings, Persian & Turkish miniature paintings.  The Rajasthan style Miniature paintings were audacious masterpiece and the application of abstract art in those paintings is clearly visible.

Miniature paintings are one of the important sources of information about the history as they are extraordinarily narrative of the historical events.  Many royals in past era supported the art of miniature paintings by order to make personalized self-portraits.

Some of the Mughal styled Miniature paintings have been inspired from the Persian school of painting. As far as European countries are concerned their Miniature paintings were contemporary to that of Indian art but they somewhat lacked diversity.