01 Work, The Art of War, Payag's Nasiri Khan Directing the Siege of Qandahar, with footnotes

Payag (Indian, active ca. 1591–1658)

Nasiri Khan Directing the Siege of Qandahar, May 1631, ca. 1633

Opaque watercolor, ink and gold on paper

Page: 22 15/16 x 14 7/16 in. (58.2 x 36.7 cm)

The Metropolitan Museum of Art

The Siege of Kandhar by the artist Payag shows the detonation of mines that Mughal forces have laid under the walls of a Deccani fort. In the foreground a bejewelled general gestures grandly towards the flames and billows of smoke. These will destroy the fort’s outer walls and cause the defenders to capitulate. Mughal soldiers in the nearby trench stolidly watch this explosion, but those in the middle ground betray more emotion as they look at the bloodied bodies of three fellow-soldiers, now reduced to bloodied dead bodies on the battlefield. Near them, in barely visible strokes that blend into the background, the artist sketches corpses that have decomposed and become skeletons, yet they grimace and flail about in pain. More on this work

Payag (fl. circa 1595-1655) was one of the greatest and most unusual artists of the royal Mughal atelier. His career spanned the period from the end of Akbar's reign to Shah Jahan's. He contributed to the Razmnama, the Baburnama and the Iyar-i Danish during the 1590s, but seems to have become less popular and less productive during Jahangir's reign. His career came fully to fruition during the late 1620s, under the patronage of Shah Jahan, when his style also developed a new confidence and distinctive manner. Payag also produced a series of intensely personal and disturbing paintings marked by an almost expressionist sense of realism. These miniatures are populated by figures whose lively features occasionally border on caricature." (Okada 1992, p.208). He became very fond of night or dusk scenes, with fires and candles providing glowing and flickering light sources and deep shadows, his frequent use of a smoky atmosphere and chiaroscuro in such paintings becoming a signature feature of his style. More on Payag

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