Beyond the Fanciful: Willem Schellinks's Engagement with Mughal Art

Abstract

The "Dutch Golden Age" allowed many facets of Dutch life to flourish including the visual arts as an influx of new materials and art was being brought into Amsterdam. The Mughal Empire would be a source of inspiration for many artists including landscape artist Willem Schellinks (1623-1678) with his work Shah Jahan and His Four Sons pulling from Mughal and Indian sources. These sources included the flatness of Mughal art, composite figures of Indian art, and the addition of Jahangir and Akbar in apotheosis reproduced in Mughal and Dutch works. Schellinks’s works blends authentic Indian art forms to the European characterization of a ‘fantastical’ Mughal world during a time of mass Dutch colonization and oriental stereotypes in Dutch art. Schellinks's not only brilliantly demonstrates his interest in Mughal figures but also his interest in Indian art as the beginning of true art. Shah Jahan and His Four Sons is a compelling work of cultural adoption during a time of mass interaction for the Dutch Republic and as a fantastical piece within humble 17th-century Dutch art.