devotion to the needs of love.

It is this suavely delicate art which now appears in Garhwal. Among the
Guler painters was a master-artist and although his first Garhwal pictures
are concerned with passionate romance, devotion to Krishna quickly
becomes apparent.[107] The great Alaknanda River which roared through
Srinagar, the capital, had a special fascination for him and just as
Leonardo da Vinci evinced at one time a passionate interest in springing
curls, the Guler artist found a special excitement in winding eddies and
dashing water. The result was a sudden new interpretation of the Krishna
theme. In two pictures where Krishna is shown quelling the snake
Kaliya,[108] all the Guler qualities of elegant naturalism are abundantly
present. Each figure has a smooth suavity and in every face there appears
a look of calm adoration. It is the swirling, curling water, however,
which gives the pictures their special Garhwal quality. The play of water
evokes a melody of line and the result is a sense of upsurging joy. A
similar religious exaltation marks other pictures by this master. At some
time he appears to have been commissioned to illustrate the tale of Sudama
the poor Brahman whose tattered hovel is changed by Krishna into a golden
palace. He was evidently assisted by a weaker painter but in the pictures
which are clearly his own work, the same quality of lyrical incantation
appears. As Sudama journeys to Dwarka Krishna's golden city, his heart
swoons with adoration, the hills, trees and ocean appear to dance about
him and once again, the linear music of the composition engenders a
feeling of supreme ecstasy.[109] We do not know which member of the Garhwal
court acted as his patron--it is even possible that it was not the ruler
himself but his consort, the Guler princess whom he had married in about
the year 1770. What, at any rate, is clear is that at least one lively
adorer of Krishna existed at the Garhwal court and that until the Gurkha
invasions of 1803, there were other painters, besides the master-artist,