Patna Qalam Paintings

Patna Qalam paintings of Bihar is a major painting style to emerge from the state. Patna Qalam paintings have a history of 200 years. It is believed to be a successful blend of Mughal miniature and European painting techniques. Humayun, after his exile to Persia came back with a group of painters to illustrate Dastan-i-Amir Hamza. In their hands and under the great patronage of Akbar, grew the wonderful style of the Mughal miniaturists.

After Aurangzeb's dismissal of these painters from the Mughal courts, they traveled to the east in search of patronage. Their travels brought them first to Murshidabad in Bengal and then took them to Patna, after the gradual decay of Murshidabad. However, in the mean time the nature of their patronage changed. Now, European officers and traders were the chief patrons. That brought about a change in the very nature of their work. The illustrative arts of the Mughal courts changed to the representative styles of Europe. With the change in subject matters came a change in the techniques and the new style of Bihar's Patna Qalam paintings, or the Patna school of painting developed.

The themes of the Patna Qalam paintings in Bihar are usually birds, animals, rural scenes, men and women involved in various trades and scenes from various spheres of the Indian social and communal life. In short, they painted everything that their European patrons thought representative of Indian lives and valued as collectibles. They also created a few portraits of royal personages. They followed the European naturalist tendencies and blended them with the meticulous detailing of the Mughal paintings. Sewak Ram, Hulas Lal, Shiva Lal and Shiva Dayal Lal are some of the most famous miniaturists in the Patna Qalam tradition. The Patna museum has a wonderful collection of authentic Patna Qalam paintings from Bihar.