Miniature Painting as Muslim Cosmopolitanism

Abstract

Artists in Lahore have creatively reinterpreted Mughal miniature painting and its successors. The artist Chughtai initiated this process when he started to reorient his “Indian” painting towards consciously Islamic styles. Although he had no immediate followers, since the 1980s a new group of artists inspired by Chughtai’s works has started to produce playfully subversive miniature paintings. By using “obsolete” painting techniques in depicting familiar political themes, important questions are raised about the “reality” of the media imagery that surrounds us.