prettiness of manner, stamping them once again as products of a style
which, in its earliest phases, was admirably suited to recording dramatic
action but which had little relevance to either religion or romance. For
these a more poetic and symbolic manner was necessary and such a style
appeared in the city of Udaipur in the Rajput State of Mewar.

Painting at Udaipur is inseparably associated with the influence of two
great rulers--Rana Jagat Singh (1628-1652) and Rana Raj Singh (1652-1681)
As early as 1605 pictures had been produced at the State's former capital,
Chawand--the artist being a Muhammadan named Nasiruddin. His style was
obviously quite independent of any Mughal influence and it is rather to
the separate tradition of painting which had grown up in Malwa that we
must look for its salient qualities--a tensely rhythmical line, a
flamboyant use of strong emphatic colours, vigorous simplifications and
boldly primitive idioms for plants and trees. It is this style which
thirty or forty years later comes to luxuriant maturity in a series of
illustrations executed at Udaipur.[80] Although the artists responsible
included a Muslim, Shahabaddin, and a Hindu, Manohar, it is the Krishna
theme itself which seems to have evoked this marvellous efflorescence.
Rana Jagat Singh was clearly a devout worshipper whose faithful adhesion
to Rajput standards found exhilarating compensations in Krishna's role as
lover. Keshav Das's _Rasika Priya_ achieved the greatest popularity at his
court--its blend of reverent devotion and ecstatic passion fulfilling some
of the deepest Rajput needs. Between the years 1645 and 1660 there
accordingly occurred a systematic production not only of pictures
illustrating this great poetic text but of the various books in the
_Bhagavata Purana_ most closely connected with Krishna's career. Krishna
is shown as a Rajput princeling dressed in fashionable garb, threading his
way among the cowgirls, pursuing his amorous inclinations and practising
with artless guile the seductive graces of a courtly lover. Each picture