Femininity transformed. Indianisation and Europeanisation in the contact zones as seen in Indian miniature painting from the 16th–19th centuries

Abstract

The subject of the article is an analysis of how images of European women were adapted in Indian miniature painting created under the patronage of Muslim and Hindu rulers during the period from the 16th to the 19th century. The term contact zone was used to identify areas where two cultures – in this case, Indian and European – met and the interactions between them. This would seem relevant for a analysis of these complex multicultural relations and this article will focus on two issues – art and gender. The analysed works bring together some fundamental issues – they were created for a local recipient, not the coloniser. Therefore, they reveal the reactions of a local artist created for a local patron. By analysing the representations of European women, or those modelled on them, one may observe the following process of their assimilation into an Indian form: familiarsing themselves with a foreign femininity and technique by copying and then adapting it to an Indian theme and then the Indianisation of European women and the creation on this basis of a new type of Indian woman Images of European women also affected how Indian women were portrayed. So this contact had two main dimensions – European ladies were subjected to Indianisation, while the Indians underwent a kind of Europeanisation.