e Krishna idyll in exquisite terms. Elsewhere, however,
conditions varied. At the end of the sixteenth century, it was not a Hindu
but a Muslim ruler who commissioned the greatest illustrations of the
story. In the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, Hindu patrons were the
rule but in certain states it was junior members of the ruling family
rather than the Raja himself who worshipped Krishna. Sometimes it was not
the ruling family but members of the merchant community who sponsored the
artists and, occasionally, it was even a pious lady or devout princess who
served as patron. Such differences of stimulus had vital effects and, as a
consequence, while the cult of Krishna came increasingly to enthrall the
northern half of India, its expression in art was the reverse of neat and
orderly. Where a patron was so imbued with love for Krishna that adoration
of the cowherd lover preceded all, the intensity of his feeling itself
evoked a new style. There then resulted the Indian equivalent of pictures
by El Greco, Grunewald or Altdorfer--paintings in which the artist's own
religious emotions were the direct occasion of a new manner. In other
cases, the patron might adhere to Krishna, pay him nominal respect or take
a moderate pleasure in his story but not evince a burning enthusiasm. In
such cases, paintings of Krishna would still be produced but the style
would merely repeat existing conventions. The pictures which resulted
would then resemble German paintings of the Danube or Cologne
schools--pictures in which the artist applied an already mature style to a
religious theme but did not originate a fresh mode of expression. Whether
the greatest art resulted from the first or second method was
problematical for the outcome depended as much on the nature of the styles
as on the artist's powers. In considering Indian pictures of Krishna,
then, we must be prepared for sudden fluctuations in expression and abrupt
differences of style and quality. Adoration of Krishna was to prove one of
the most vital elements in village and courtly life. It was to capture the
imagination of Rajput princes and to lead to some of the most intimate
revelations of the Indian mind. Yet in art its expression was to hover
between the crude and the sensitive, the savage and the exquisite. It was
to stimulate some of the most delicate Indian pictures ever painted and,
at the same time, some of the most forceful.

The first pictures of Krishna to be painted