Layla and Majnun in the wilderness with animals

Sanwalah’s painting of Layla and Majnun in the wilderness with animals, dating to around 1590–1600 and painted in Mughal India, takes a well-known Middle Eastern love story- and produces a complex Mughal miniature. The painting displays reunited lovers in a multicoloured wilderness, painted in gum tempera, ink and gold on paper. Majnun, worn down by grief and separation, sits alongside Layla, as deer, lions and monkeys mingle. The overall effect of rocks, trees, mountains and a far-away city is crowded; the detail is linear which helps overlap and create depth. Layla and Majnun, a couple torn apart by society and having to live separately from one another for years, have been united here within the colorful stones. Majnun literally means “madman,” because the separation made him go crazy. Majnun exiled himself to the desert and got extremely skinny. When Layla found Majnun after her visionary dream, the wild animals were all around them, attracted by the pureness and sincerity of their love. This painting is based on the story written by the Indian author in Persian, who changed the ending of the story provided by other Persian authors before him about the ancient Bedouin story in which Layla died before reuniting with Majnun physically. The gathering of animals around them shows how special their love is. References to a dervish spirituality in the Persian inscriptions associate the earthly love further with the Sufi love. Thus, the Sanwalah scene depicts a confluence of romantic nature, where man, God and nature meet within Persian man, Indian artist and Mughal scribe.