This ethereal painting portrays a
disappointed heroine who has gone in vain to rendezvous with her lover for a
tryst in a forest clearing at night under a full moon. The frustrated paramour
waits by an unused bed of leaves and throws her jewelry to the ground in anger
over being jilted. Her distress has inflamed her sensitivity. As the poet
Kesavadas says in his, Rasikapriya, "the moon-rays burn her body as though
with fever, . . . every jewel burns like a firebrand".
The subdued palette used to express the
moonlit scene aptly conveys the cool, dreamlike luminosity of such a night. The
use of shimmering moonlight was particularly favored in Guler painting of the
period and, along with the mannered figure type and landscape features, was
especially effective in conveying the underlying romantic mood of the genre.
The personifications of love play,
nayikas (female lovers) and nayakas (male lovers), were especially favored in
the painting of Kangra and those Pahari ateliers heavily influenced by the
Kangra idiom: Guler, Garhwal, Nurpur, and Mandi in its later phases. Paintings
depicting the individual types of female lovers, such as the present example,
she who has made an appointment and is disappointed (labdhavipra), were
frequently produced in sets. These sets and the majority of devotional
literature often emphasized the theme and ethos of unrequited love, which was
expressed through the many varieties and nuances of lovers in separation. In
addition to portrayals of forlorn nayikas, the Guler artists also depicted
various other love-sick couples including Sohni and Mahinwal as well as Sassi
and Punnu.
Writer
Name:- Pratapaditya Pal
Courtesy of this painting?