Illustrations

Though these two works were created over 300 years apart and thousands more miles apart, they use many of the same principles.  These depictions of important characters both use symbolism to display their messages.  The Gothic piece God as Architect of the World shows Jesus as an industrious architect of the universe.  The artist gives him to the tools used at the time by Gothic workers to make this piece relate to the population at the time.  The artist also utilized the popular symbols of a triangle to represent the Holy Trinity and a circle to represent the eternity of god.  Touched up with some latin text, this work is filled with symbolism and sends a powerful message.

In Jahangir Preferring a Sufi Shaykh to Kings, the artist, Bichitr, uses many European techniques and symbols.  Created during the early seventeenth century, India was still under the imperial rule of the United Kingdom and the East India Trading Company.  This led to a large amount of European works entering the area, hence the strong influence on this work.  The ruler, Jahangir, is shown sitting on top of an hourglass that is about to run out.  The text that the cupids are writing, however, wish that the ruler would live for a thousand years.  Jahangir is surrounded by a massive halo that symbolizes his role as that center of the universe and the central light source. The figures in the left of the picture include the artist himself at the bottom and a copied European image of King James I.

There is an obvious similarity between the two, but the mediums used are very different.  The Gothic work was done with ink, tempera, and gold leaf on vellum.  This use of gold leaf is extremely common is Gothic works. The Indian miniature paintings, however, were done in watercolor on paper.  This shows the immense skill that it took because doing detail with watercolor is difficult.  Bichitr did have an advantage though because he come nearly 400 years later, after many artistic developments had happened.