Kerala Mural Paintings
Krishna and Radha in the Grove
The flute sounded under the banyan canopy, with the peacock and the doe listening
Story
The panel is vertical, and everything in it leans towards the flute. Krishna stands at the centre in the triple bend, blue-grey against a deep red ground, his crown fanned with peacock plume and gold, the flute lifted across his face. Radha stands just behind at the left of Lord Krishna , fair-complexioned, a white lotus in her fingers, her head tilted to listen.
Below them the peacock stands at the lower left with its wing folded like a shield of orange scale-work; two does steps in from the left, ears turned forward. In the upper corners two green parrots perch on the banyan branches, and a nest hangs on a long stalk between them.
The background has dense green foliage rendered as clusters of tiny leaves at the top and a hot vermilion field behind the figures.
The jewellery is the real labour here: tiered gold collars, ear discs, armlets and a pearl-set band across Radha's shoulder, each element finished with a fine-hair brush.
Symbolism
- The flute
- The call of the divine, heard by whoever is quiet enough
- Tribhanga stance
- The triple bend — grace, and the body at ease
- White lotus in Radha's hand
- Devotion offered without condition
- Peacock and doe
- The animal world drawn in by the music
- Banyan canopy
- Shelter, and the endlessly renewing tree of life
- Vermilion ground
- The living wall behind the scene
Artistic Technique
- Vertical composition set out freehand in yellow ochre
- Foliage built from thousands of individual leaves in three greens
- Doe modelled in warm stipple against the flat colour of the deities
