Radha Worships Krishna's Feet

Krishna-Lila stories referred to in the Bhagvata have been a popular theme, much celebrated in medieval Indian devotional literature as an expression of Radha's love for Krishna. Krishna here is seated on a stool and Radha is seated at his feet caressing one of them. The background is blank and the figures appear detached from it. The artist has evoked a sense of volume by proficient linear treatment of form. The delineation of form and volume through contours, more in the nature of rapid, unmediated sweeps, automatically swelling and thinning as they progress is the essence of this style of painting. The line is powerful and confident. While painting, the energy of these crisp sweeps is so forceful and original that it does not match the pencil outline. The picture reveals traces of pencil drawing beneath the translucent water colors. The drawing is bold and self-assured, evincing a well rehearsed and unfaltering hand behind it. After the lithographic outline, tinting of limbs and clothing of figures is done in flat colors. The final toning is done with graded tones and sweeps indicating volume pulsating with life; drawing of facial features, toes and fingers and the bounding of forms in swift, fine and unmediated outline lends them a sense of spirit and energy.

The Kalighat artists strove to lend rotundity to forms by means of graduated tones of color, strongly emerging from one side of a limb and gradually folding out, conveying an illusion of volume.

This description by Renu Rana.