Page from a Gita Govinda Series: Krishna and Radha Make Love (Primary Title)
This sublimely executed painting from Kangra comes from a well-known series illustrating the Gita Govinda, a 12th-century poetic text that describes every stage in the passionate romance of Krishna and Radha. Depicted is a passage in which Radha, temporarily deserted by the blue-skinned deity, can only visualize their communion. Her fantasy finds the pair making love in the forest, on the banks of a lake or stream. They lie upon a bed of leaves, a blanket-like hillock discreetly concealing most of their bodies. All around them, a rhythmic landscape surges, full of exquisite blossoms, trees, and flower-laden creepers. It is spring, when the world is as fresh, vital, and young as the passions of these two lovers, whose union symbolizes the perfect bliss experienced in the merger of the mortal and the divine.
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