a
was introduced, this time as her lover. In all these cases the celebration
of Krishna was incidental to the main theme and only in one instance--a
Malwa _Rasika Priya_--is there a trace of undisguised adoration. In this
lovely series,[86] Krishna's enchantment is perfectly suggested by the
flowering trees which wave above him, the style acquiring an even more
intense lyricism on account of its divine subject.

During the eighteenth century, painting in Rajasthan became increasingly
secular, even artists of Udaipur devoting themselves almost exclusively to
scenes of court life. The Ranas and the Mewar nobility were depicted
hunting in the local landscape, watching elephant fights or moving in
procession. Similar fashions prevailed in Jodhpur, Jaisalmer, Bikaner,
Bundi and Kotah. Only, in fact, in two Rajasthan States and then for only
brief periods was there any major celebration of the Krishna theme. At
Kishangarh, a small State midway between Ajmer and Jaipur, a series of
intensely poetic paintings were produced between the years 1750 and
1760--the prime stimulus being the delight of Raja Sawant Singh in
Krishna's romance.[87] Born in 1699, Sawant Singh had ascended the throne
in 1748 and given all his time to three activities, the rapturous
re-living of Krishna's romance with Radha, the composition of ecstatic
poems and the daily worship of Krishna as lover god. So great was his
devotion that in 1757 he abandoned the throne and taking with him his
favourite maid of honour, the beautiful poetess, Bani Thani, retired to
Brindaban where he died in 1764. Sawant Singh's delight seems to have been
shared by a local artist, Nihal Chand, for under the Raja's direction he
produced a number of pictures in which Radha and Krishna sustained the
leading roles. The pictures were mainly illustrations of Sawant Singh's
own poems--the lovers being portrayed at moments of blissful wonder,
drifting on a lake in a scarlet boat, watching fireworks cascading down
the sky or gently dallying in a marble pavilion.

Here is Love's enchanted zone
Here Time and the Firmament stand still
Here the Bride and Bridegroom
Never can grow old.
Here the fountains never cease to play
And the night is ever young.[88]

Nihal Chand's style was eminently fitted to express this mood of sensitive
adoration. Originally trained in the later Mughal style, he was able to
render appearances with exquisite delicacy but was also acutely aware of
rhy