Golconda painting

Mark Zebrowski finds broad trends in Golconda painting hard to establish, because painting in almost pure Safavid, Turkish and Mughal styles continued throughout the sultanate's history, as if the Qutb Shahi sultans welcomed artists from across the Islamic world and encouraged them to keep their own styles. Yet a taste for fiery colours — lilac-pink, coral-red, inky blue — and a seething vitality of line and composition mark the work of native and foreign artists alike. ¹

The founder, Sultan Quli, was a Black Sheep (Qara Qoyunlu) Turkman prince who emigrated from western Iran to Bidar in 1478 and declared independence in 1512. The author believes the earthy Turkman style of the dynasty's homeland set the tone of Golconda taste, and that the school's roots may lie in fifteenth-century Tabriz and Baghdad. ^{1 3 4} He describes its works as tensely opulent and fundamentally un-Persian, recalling Indian dance, carved temple façades and southern vegetation. ²

The earliest Golconda paintings in an original style are the illustrations to the Urdu Kulliyat of Muhammad Quli Qutb Shah in the late sixteenth century, followed by the Composite Horse and the Tree on the Island of Waqwaq in Berlin and the Procession of Sultan Abdullah Qutb Shah on an elephant in Leningrad, which for the author proves the school was reaching new heights in the mid-seventeenth century despite Mughal influence. ^{1 5} Under Abul Hasan divergent styles coexisted, including portraits of the saint Shah Raju. ^{1 6}