In 2011, I happened upon a Brooklyn Museum exhibition called “Vishnu: Hinduism’s Blue-Skinned Savior.” One of the showstoppers: a large painted textile of eight milkmaids in a line — four facing right and four facing left — flecked throughout with gold.

Unschooled in Hindu art, I didn’t know that I was contemplating a pichwai (from the Sanskrit for “back” and “hanging”), a backdrop for shrines to Krishna, one of the 10 primary avatars of Vishnu. The golden milkmaids, known as gopis, were bringing him gifts.

Lent to the Brooklyn show by the National Museum of Asian Art, that pichwai and 13 others from the Smithsonian museum’s collection are on view through Aug. 24 in “Delighting Krishna: Paintings of the Child-God,” curated by Dr. Debra Diamond, Elizabeth Moynihan Curator for South and Southeast Asian Art, and E. Allen Richardson, professor emeritus of religious studies at Cedar Crest College in Allentown. Each of the six galleries displays between one and six of the colorful and intricate hangings, along with related works.

Installation view of “Delighting Krishna.” Photo by Richard Selden.

First, some background on these backdrops, which, the museum notes, are on public view for the first time since the 1970s following a three-year conservation project (the reference is to “Rajasthani Temple Hangings of the Krishna Cult from the Collection of Karl Mann, New York,” an American Federation of Arts exhibition that toured from 1973 to 1975).

In accordance with the time of day, season and festival, pichwais are hung in Pushtimarg temples behind representations of Shri Nathji, that is, Krishna as a little boy. These icons, in which the living god is said to be present, are dressed, tended and venerated by devotees, who offer fruit, flowers and prayers accompanied by music. The 14 different-sized pichwais in “Delighting Krishna” were painted in the 18^th, 19^th and 20^th centuries.

Pushtimarg (the Path of Grace) is a devotional movement within Vaishnavism, the branch of Hinduism that centers on Vishnu, the Preserver. Vishnu; Brahma, the Creator; and Shiva, the Destroyer, constitute the Hindu trinity, the Trimurti.

As the exhibition text explains, the Pushtimarg sect is based in Nathdwara, a small city north of Udaipur in Rajasthan. In 1494, the sect’s founding sage, Vallabha, encountered a stone embodiment of the child-god on Govardhan Hill, a sacred site on the Yamuna River in Uttar Pradesh, northwest of Agra. In 1672, that icon was brought to Nathdwara, which became a pilgrimage center.

Other Pushtimarg communities are elsewhere in India, in Australia and in the U.S., notably in Schuylkill Haven, Pennsylvania. Members were consulted in the preparation of the exhibition and labels share their commentary, as well as that of the curators and conservators.

“Delighting Krishna” is part of “The Arts of Devotion,” a five-year National Museum of Asian Art initiative exploring Buddhism, Hinduism and Islam, funded by the Indianapolis-based Lilly Endowment (somewhat surprisingly, since the endowment’s religion-related grants generally focus on Christianity).

To suggest the ambiance of their temple settings, the 14 pichwais are strikingly lit in the darkened gallery spaces, most with indigo walls. Magnifying glasses are provided for close examination. Indian flute and drum music is piped in (the flute is Krishna’s instrument, with which he charms cows and milkmaids) and clusters of stylized yellow hands, fish, lotuses, waves and other symbols are projected on the floor to lead visitors along.

On a central partition painted bright orange, the first gallery displays a pichwai with a full frontal depiction of the blue-skinned child-god — looking far more god than child — painted in opaque watercolor, tin and gold. Four white cows gaze up at him from a blue band at the bottom.

The surrounding walls offer eight delicately beautiful paintings from illustrated manuscripts dating from the 1520s to the 1820s, including “Radha Pining for Krishna,” from a Gita Govinda (Song of the Lord) made in Himachal Pradesh between 1775 and 1780. Leader of the gopis, Krishna’s consort Radha — an avatar of Vishnu’s consort Lakshmi, who forms a female trinity, the Tridevi, with Parvati and Sarasvati — partners the god in the raas lila dance. Her yearning, explains the text, is a spiritual metaphor.

Several of the works on paper in the exhibition illustrate either of two episodes from Book 10 of the Bhagavata Purana, written around the year 900. Chapter 22 tells how Krishna “stole” the clothes of the gopis while they bathed in the Yamuna River, only returning them after they reluctantly came out of the water, exposing themselves.

A 19th-century throne cover from the Deccan plateau in “Delighting Krishna.” Photo by Richard Selden.

Here, too, a romantic-erotic passage is linked to a spiritual message: “The desire of those whose consciousness is fully absorbed in Me,” Krishna tells the gopis (as translated at bhagavata.org), “does not lead to material lust, just as roasted and cooked grains as a rule are not capable of causing new growth.”

The other episode, in Chapter 25, relates how, when Indra sent a storm to punish a cowherd village, Krishna “took up with one hand Govardhana hill and held it high as easily as a child holding a mushroom” to serve as an immense umbrella for the inhabitants and their cows.

In the second gallery, titled Setting the Stage, along with a map of key sites, a pichwai and a diagrammed reproduction, is a replica of a lalan (meaning “beloved”), a doll-like figure of Krishna as a toddler. In late February, this figure was elaborately dressed with fabrics and jewelry by sister and brother Kesar and Kush Patel.

The third gallery features two 19^th-century pichwais connected with the autumn full moon festival. One shows four gopis in a riverside procession, with stylized foliage behind and pairs of small figures floating above. A community label reads: “Look! Delight is in everything, everywhere, all at once! The women are celebrating. The cows are celebrating. The lotuses are dancing! There’s a pattern in the lotuses at the bottom of the pichwai, right? They’re opening and closing, bending and alternating — Nature is celebrating!”

The fourth gallery, the largest, contains six pichwais and five works on paper, including personal mementos of visits to Nathdwara: a studio photograph and a watercolor with the photographed faces of the devotees pasted in. One pichwai shows a standing-room-only herd of cows enraptured by Krishna’s flute-playing. Another represents Vallabha’s lineage with a grid of perhaps 500 circular portraits.

Holi, festival of colors, love and spring, is the theme of the fifth gallery, displaying two pichwais and five works on paper. Three of the small works, including a drawing by a Western-trained artist, depict head priest of the Nathdwara temple Tilkayat Govardhanlalji (1862-1934), a Vallabha descendant.

Titled Deccan Shimmer, the sixth gallery provides a golden finale, displaying a 19^th-century throne cover and two pichwais, including the one that made a lasting impression on me in Brooklyn, a late 18^th– or early 19^th-century pichwai for the monsoon season from Hyderabad.

Delighting Krishna: Paintings of the Child-God

Through Aug. 24

National Museum of Asian Art, 1050 Independence Ave. SW

asia.si.edu

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