s than.

During the fifteenth century, this exclusive character gradually weakened.
There arose the idea that besides Jain scriptures, secular poetry might
also be illustrated and along with the growing devotion to Krishna as God
came the demand for illustrated versions of Krishna texts. The three texts
we have just mentioned are due to this tendency. All three are illustrated
in the prevailing Jain style with its spiky angular idioms and all three
have the same somewhat sinister air of barbarous frenzy. At the same time,
all disclose a partial loosening of the rigid wiry convention, a more
boisterous rhythm and a slightly softer treatment of trees and animals;
and, although no very close correlation is possible, the theme itself may
well have helped to precipitate these important changes.

Between 1450 and 1575, Western Indian painting continued to focus on Jain
themes, adulterated to only a very slight extent by subjects drawn from
poetry. It is possible that the Krishna story was also illustrated, but no
examples have survived; and it is not until the very end of the sixteenth
century that the Krishna theme again appears in painting and then in two
distinct forms. The first is represented by a group of three
manuscripts--two of them dated respectively 1598[68] and 1610[69] and
consisting of the tenth book of the _Bhagavata Purana_, the third being
yet another illustration of the _Gita Govinda[70]_. All three sets of
illustrations are in a closely similar style--a style which, while
possessing roots in Jain painting is now considerably laxer and more
sprawling. The faces are no longer shown three-quarter view, the detached
obtruding eye has gone and in place of the early sharpness there is now a
certain slovenly crudity. We do not know for whom these manuscripts were
made nor even in what particular part of Western India or Rajasthan they
were executed. They were clearly not produced in any great centre of
painting and can hardly have been commissioned by a prince or merchant of
much aesthetic sensibility. They prove, however, that a demand for
illustrated versions of the Krishna story was persisting and suggest that
even prosperous traders may perhaps have acted as patrons.

The second type is obviously the product of far more sophisticated
influences. It is once again a copy of the _Gita Govinda_ and was probably
executed in about 1590 in or near Jaunpur in Eastern India. As early as
1465, a manuscript of the leadi