seems to have undergone a new resuscitation. Following various wars in
Middle India, the former Muslim kingdom had been divided into fiefs--some
being awarded to Rajput nobles of loyalty and valour. The result was yet
another style of painting--comparable in certain ways to that of Bundi and
Udaipur yet markedly original in its total effect. In place of tightly
geometrical compositions, Malwa artists preferred a more fluid grouping,
their straining luxuriant trees blending with swaying creepers to create a
soft meandering rhythm and only the human figures, with their sharply cut
veils and taut intense faces, expressing the prevailing cult of frenzied
passion.[82] Such schools of painting reflected the Rajput need for
passionate romance rather than any specially strong adhesion to Krishna,
the divine lover. Although one copy of the _Rasika Priya_ and one of the
_Bhagavata Purana_ were executed at both these centres, their chief
subjects were the _ragas_ and _raginis_ (the thirty-six modes of Indian
music) _nayakas_ and _nayikas_ (the ideal lovers) and _barahmasas_ (the
twelve months) while in the case of Malwa, there was the added theme of
Sanskrit love-poetry. Krishna the god was rarely celebrated and it was
rather as 'the best of lovers' that he was sometimes introduced into
pictures. In a Bundi series depicting the twelve months, courtly lovers
are shown sitting in a balcony watching a series of rustic incidents
proceeding below. The lover, however, is not an ordinary prince but
Krishna himself, his blue skin and royal halo leaving no possible doubt as
to his real identity.[83] Similarly in paintings illustrating the
character and personality of musical modes, Krishna was often introduced
as the perfect embodiment of passionate loving. None of the poems
accompanying the modes make any allusion to him. Indeed, their prime
purpose is to woo the presiding genius of the melody and suggest the
visual scene most likely to evoke its spirit. The musical mode, _Bhairava
Raga_, for example, was actually associated with Siva, yet because the
character of the music suggested furious passion the central figure of the