(Above) Death of Vali; Rama and Lakshmana Wait Out the Monsoon. From the Ramcharitmanas of Tulsidas (1532-1623). Jodhpur (1775). Picture © Mehrangarh Museum Trust
Exhibition: Garden and Cosmos: The Royal Paintings of Jodhpur, Room 35, The British Museum, London until October 11 2009
In a month of erratic temperatures, the British Museum has given us an Indian Summer. Until the end of June you can catch sacred dancers welcoming visitors to the Museum courtyard, a botanical landscape in Bloomsbury housing Himalayan blue poppies, Gangetic mango trees and subtropical palms and lectures on everything from obscure yoga to the relationship Charles Darwin had with Indian plants.
At the epicentre of all this lies Garden and Cosmos, a hallucinatory journey charting the artistic development of the court of Jodhpur across three consecutive reigns of Maharajas through the 18th and 19th centuries.
The Equivalence of Self and Universe.“The Muslim Artist, Bulaki (1824). Picture © Mehrangarh Museum Trust
An exceptional loan of more than 50 paintings produced on the sprawling Indian state now known as Rajasthan, the collection has never gone on display in the UK before, and the procurement of this intoxicating trip through eye-popping visions of decadent kingdoms owes a debt of gratitude to the Mehrangarh Museum Trust it has been procured from.
The idling of Bakhat Singh opens the show with glimpses of a 26-year reign of palaces and pleasure gardens on the edge of the desert. Richard Blurton, Department of Asia Curator at the Museum, casually summarises Bakhat's reign as being "mostly glorified in his own pleasure," gazing at gluttonous pictures of the leader revelling in the moonlight with a host of groupies.
(Above) Rama's Army Crosses the Ocean to Lanka. From the Ramcharitmanas of Tulsidas (1532-1623). Jodhpur (circa 1775). Picture © Mehrangarh Museum Trust
"We see these extraordinary depictions of him enjoying festivals and watching elephants run amok,”"says Blurton. "These are pleasures of the senses set against a partially tamed landscape."
The lush, enigmatic forest backdrop seems at odds with the actual location of these soirees, but it scarcely matters. You can sense the boisterous, self-indulgent fun of it all, jostling frivolity threatening to leap from the canvas. "It hardly actually exists," says Blurton, "but it's wonderfully evocative if you're looking at a painting in these circumstances."
(Above) Maharaja Bakhat Singh Rejoices during Holi. Artist 3. Nagaur (circa) 1748-50. Picture © Mehrangarh Museum Trust
His successor, Vijai Singh, introduces a higher plane, loaded with folios, creation myths and epics in bulging swirls of sumptuous colour. "Astonishingly, fortunately for us, the Maharajas all had particular, different obsessions," admits Blurton, reflecting on the swathe of marauding Ramayana tales whirling around the room.
"Here we move from the constrained garden within the fortress to the more open landscape of the forest."
In Indian law, forests are associated with concepts of renunciation. Vast, deeply spiritual paintings of Hindu deities and Gods romping through worlds are biblically proportioned. "The discussion on these paintings can never be complete," says Curator Sona Datta. "They confound all our expectations of what Indian painting traditionally is."
(Above) Cosmic Oceans. From the Nath Charit. Attributed to Bulaki (1823). Picture © Mehrangarh Museum Trust
Those expectations are of miniatures – smaller paintings revolving around folk tales to be viewed by "intimate groups of people", evoking certain emotions. "These paintings aren't small and there's nothing particularly intimate about them," she says, adding that Indian children "get storytelling from their mother's milk."
And then there is Man Singh, the ruler from 1803 – 1843, whose infatuation became the Naths, yogis invariably positioned in leg-bending squats atop jutting fields of colour.
"They're practicing hatha yoga," says Blurton, examining this tour de force of metaphysical Hinduism in multicolour glory. "All of the paintings in this zone [taken from more than 1,000 in total] are interested in this sect and their views on small subjects such as the origins of the universe."
Maharaja Bakhat Singh at the Jharokha Window of the Bakhat Singh Mahal. Artist 2. Nagaur (1737). Picture © Mehrangarh Museum Trust
The futuristic style of some of these is deceptive. "The triptychs where you see flat planes of gold wouldn't look out of place hanging in a 21st century gallery in East London," suggests Blurton, inadvertently underselling the supernatural Three Aspects of the Absolute. "These were Indian artists coming to these resolutions 150 years ago."
The mystery surrounding the text illustrated by these works embellishes their cosmic mystery, and the end of the show feels more like the culmination of a wander through a dreamlike underworld.
"I rather like to characterise the voyage through this exhibition as one where we have the mundane certainties of court life through to these uncertainties, these spiritual speculations," says Blurton, who sees the exhibition as an "unrivalled opportunity" for the public to understand the pieces.
He might be right, but it's the bits beyond mortal comprehension which make these royal paintings exhilarating.
Admission £8. Visit the exhibition online for full programme of events.
