Nanda and the elders, page from a Bhagavata Purana

Discussion

FROM THE CLEVELAND MUSEUM OF ART’S CATALOG

In a page from a manuscript about the life of the Hindu god Krishna, Krishna’s foster father, wearing green, confers about moving their community to a new location. Their current village has been beset by demons sent by the evil king to kill Krishna. Typical of South Asian compositions of the early 1500s, figures and other elements are arranged in horizontal rows. Above, in the story of an encounter between a gardener and a merchant’s daughter who wants a rose, we see use of the same Mughal convention, shown with a more natural conceptualization of space. Mughal compositions were often based on earlier illustrations.

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