Manak

Manak, also called Manaku, was an Indian painter born around 1700 into the Seu family of Guler, a small Pahari kingdom in the Himalayan foothills of present-day Himachal Pradesh. The elder son of Pandit Seu and brother of Nainsukh, he trained in an atelier that absorbed the late Mughal naturalism reaching the hills as Delhi’s imperial workshops declined. His earliest documented work is the completion of the Siege of Lanka series from the Ramayana, begun by his father and finished by Manak in 1725.

In 1730 he painted a landmark set of illustrations for the Gita Govinda commissioned by Lady Malini; the series retains vivid Basohli traits, including beetle-wing casings to simulate emerald jewelry, while introducing continuous narrative and foreground rivers that would become hallmarks of his style. Manak also produced portraits of Raja Govardhan Chand and his family, and later created preparatory drawings and folios for Bhagavata Purana cycles. When financial troubles beset Guler under Prakash Chand, Manak and his sons entered the service of Raja Sansar Chand of Kangra, carrying the pre-Kangra idiom to its mature phase.

Active until about 1760, Manak fused devotional subject matter with an emerging lyricism, laying the groundwork for the Kangra school’s poetic naturalism.