RAS question
The Alwar school of painting shows strong influence of which other painting tradition?
Correct answer: (C) Mughal and Company School.
The Alwar school of painting shows a strong influence of the Mughal and Company School traditions.
Explanation
Alwar painting is best understood through its late eighteenth- and nineteenth-century setting, when the state stood close to Delhi and drew heavily on Mughal artistic habits. This Delhi link appears in its fine detailing, ivory miniatures, hunting scenes and court-life themes. The cited Cambridge Core article supports the wider Mughal-Company setting: it describes nineteenth-century Alwar as engaging both Persianate Mughal political culture and colonial innovations, and notes that Ghulam Ali Khan, associated with Mughal Delhi and Company painting, spent much of the 1840s working in Alwar. That is why the answer is not a distant regional school, but the Mughal and Company School influence visible in Alwar's courtly miniature tradition.
Why the other options are wrong
- (A) The Bengal school is wrong because it belongs to the early twentieth century, while the Alwar style developed in the late eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.
- (B) Tanjore school is wrong because it is a Tamil Nadu painting tradition, not the Delhi-linked Mughal and Company context that shaped Alwar.
- (D) Kangra school is wrong because it is a Pahari school from Himachal Pradesh, whereas Alwar's influence is tied to Delhi, Mughal practice and Company-era art.
Concept
This tests the Rajasthan art-and-culture habit of linking a local court school to the political and artistic networks around it. RAS repeats such questions because miniature painting schools are often distinguished by patronage, regional setting and external influence.