In That Heaven Where Faces are Flowers and Eyes Fragrance

Sheer beauty and beauty alone characterizes the strokes of brush in this painting.The moon blushes over partially radiating banana leaves but the blushing beauty scattered all over the terrace, from faces to figures, surpasses the flat glow of unshapely moon. In the face of beauty, an assemblage par excellence, figures' individuality is lost. The unity of painting, or rather of its theme which is beauty, or the passionate excitement which the thread of love weaves, is superb. The entire painting is a song when seen and a symphony when transported and felt within. It lands the eye in that heaven of delight where faces are blossoms and eyes the oceans of nectar and mountains of fragrance.

The canvas is awfully crowded by figures, seven female and one male, and by bolsters, pillows, cushions, goblets and jars, but the viewing eye is scarcely allowed to discover them. The impact of totality is so strong that figures and forms hardly have any relevance in the painting. Like a garland of flowers the artist has threaded together so many of them around a single male and the impulse of love, beyond malice and envy, is everyone's experience no matter whoever is in their lord's arms. The artist seems to have transformed the celestial-rasa of Lord Krishna and Gopis into this painting. As with Krishna every Gopi has a feeling of being in her Lord's arms, so do the princesses here. Not all of them are in his arms but the excitement and the experience of them all is very much the same.

The painting, in its depiction of features, fine details, expression of love, softness of colors, balancing canvas, exclusion of irrelevant details, fine figures and typical Kishangarh eyes, is reminiscent of the finest strokes of Kishangarh brush. The artist has used a netted parapet and a column of deep green for dividing the canvas and for discovering for his figures some breathing space, contrast and an appropriate back-drop for his human drama. Sharp features, elegant figures, soft tones of colors and thickly populated human world, the typical features of Kishangarh masterpieces, are some of its points of distinction.

This description by Prof. P.C. Jain and Dr Daljeet. Prof. Jain specializes on the aesthetics of ancient Indian literature. Dr Daljeet is the chief curator of the Visual Arts Gallery at the National Museum of India, New Delhi. They have both collaborated on numerous books on Indian art and culture.