Krishna Revels with the Gopis: Page from a Dispersed Gita Govinda (Loves of Krishna)

1630-01-01T00:00:00Z

The Gita Govinda describes this encounter between Krishna and a Gopi: A girl with curving hips, bending to whisper in his ear,Cherishes her kiss on her lover’s tingling cheek.Hari revels here as the crowd of charming girlsRevels in seducing him to play. (canto 1, verse 41) Although the artist faithfully adheres to the text, presenting Krishna on the bank of a river surrounded by admiring Gopis, it is the essentialized forest of pink and green trees populated with birds and monkeys that animates the scene. With its wavelike horizon and distinct figure type, this work can be directly related to the Malwa Rasikapriya pages (see 35.34 and 51.58).