Radha’s crouching figure in this empty, receding landscape attests to Krishna’s absence. The poet of the Gita Govinda, Jayadeva, describes her as “lying dejected by your [Krishna’s] desertion.” Radha clings to the fantasy of being with Krishna and, like the devotee viewing this painting, is desperate for his return. In this sense, the Gita Govinda emphasizes a personal and almost selfish desire to be one with the divine, a sentiment that is expressed here in ways that had devotional impact. For example, small details like the flowering tree at the top of the work hint at Krishna’s ultimate return and, therefore, the viewer’s renewed access to him.
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Credit Line:Promised Gift of Steven Kossak, The Kronos Collections
Object Number:L.2018.44.24
In the poem of the Gita Govida, Jayadeva’s landscape is probably the landscape of Orissa and West Bengal, which he knew very well. (1) He describes mango trees clasped by madhavi and atimukta creepers. He mentions how the fragrant flowers of the ketaki (a common plant in Orissa) kindles every heart and perfumes the woods. He compares the breast of Radha with the fruit of the tala tree (also common in Orissa). Jayadeva also mentions the kesara, vakula, kadamba, madhuka, asoka, and tamala, plants which are commonly found in the villages of Orissa. He also mentions the seascape at Puri, the great Vaishnava pilgrimage center in Orissa. But the landscape portrayed in the great Series to which this painting once belonged (as well as cat. nos. 7783, and 85) , the socalled ‘Second’ , or ‘Tehri Garhwal’, Gita Govinda Series, is the landscape of the delightful Kangra Valley, centered on the Beas River, in the foothills of the Himalayas, where this Series was probably painted in ca. l7751780. The countryside and buildings remind one of the area around TiraSujanpur, where Maharaja Sansar Chand, the probable patron of this Series, resided, as well as the countryside along the banks of the Beas River, which the Maharaja also controlled. (2) What is remarkable in this Series is the way the landscape a medley of lush vegetation and rounded hills becomes an actual dramatic persona in the narrative that is being depicted. In this heartbreaking picture, for example, the forlorn Radha is grieving for her absent lover on the banks of the Beas River ( which symbolizes the text’s Yamuna River). Radha’s bent form is echoed by the arrangement of the boulders portrayed on her left. And the depiction of the 84. SK.078 landscape background is equally descriptive. The empty field and spare trees express Radha’s inner sorrow, which is bottomless. In other, happier paintings from the same Series, the landscape is more buoyantly alive. (1) M.S. Randhawa 1963, pg. 53 (2) Ibid, pg. 60
Inscription: Inscribed on the verso in black ink with 3 lines of the Sanskrit text (Part __, Stanza __) written in devanagari script (For an English translation, see Miller, trans. and ed. 1977, pg. __); also inscribed on the verso in black ink with a 2 line gloss of the text in the Pahari dialect of Panjabi written in devanagari script; also inscribed on the verso with various short notes and numbers written in pencil and a very short note written in green ink.
New York. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. "Divine Pleasures: Painting from India's Rajput Courts—The Kronos Collections," June 13–September 11, 2016.
New York. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. "Seeing the Divine: Pahari Painting of North India," December 22, 2018–July 28, 2019.
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