One of India's two
major "schools" of miniature painting, the other being Rajasthani.
Because the Basohli paintings belong to the Pahari school,
but are artistically closer to those of Rajasthan than to the later Pahari
style, the boundaries between schools are geographical and hence rather
arbitrary.
The Pahari style thrived in the Shiwalik Hills north and
west of Delhi throughout the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.
It initially appears in the kingdom of Basohli, where the
Rajasthani school's influence is most obvious, and then spread to the kingdoms
of Jammu, Guler, Garhwal, and Kangra.
The evolved Pahari style differs from the Rajasthani in that
it emphasizes more linear drawing—perhaps influenced by European art—and a more
restrained use of color, all of which contribute to a more lyrical mood to the
paintings.
W. G. Archer, Indian Painting, 1957; and "Pahari
Miniatures: A Concise History," Marg, Vol. 28, No. 2, 1975, for further
details.
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