The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York is currently hosting an exhibition of artwork from the Pahari tradition of North India. Set in an intimate gallery in an annexe of the Southeast Asian Art section of the museum, “Seeing the Divine” offers a small but invaluable selection of Pahari works—including those by notable artists like Nainsukh and his older brother Manaku, who are well-recognised by Indian art historians. I was fortunate to speak with the exhibition curator, Kurt Behrendt, who walked me through the narrative of the Pahari tradition, and offered his insight on how it stands apart from any other form of art in the country.

What struck me most about the exhibition is how diverse the collection was. Some paintings followed the recognisable compositions of precise, intricate Mughal miniatures, while others were raw, vibrant and very tribal in their style and colouring. The range of styles and forms corresponds to the fact that the Pahari tradition wasn’t a movement or style in its own right; it is essentially defined by location—the mountains—and the time period. “We can take it from as early as the 1640s, if you think of Jehangir's courts, his big ateliers, breaking up with Shah Jahan coming to power,” says Behrendt. “And then I would say by 1810, 1820 things started to fall off. You still have some works, as late as 1850, but the great things are probably before 1800. And this probably is tied to the British becoming more powerful, taking all the money.”

In terms of content, the only real signifier of a Pahari painting is that it is devotional. “I would say that unlike the Rajasthani and Mughal tradition, they're mostly about the gods,” Behrendt offers. While Pahari paintings do borrow heavily from the style of many other traditions—Mughal miniatures, or even the tradition of raga mala paintings that visually represented ragas from Indian classical music—they themselves never venture into a secular space. “You find a few portraits but you don't find raga mala, and you don't find hunt scenes or palace scenes.”

As a result of the devotional nature of the tradition, the number of pieces that were created is also relatively small. Berhendt tells me that the artist and patron often had a long-standing relationship—and the commissioning of the work might have been considered a devotional act in and of itself. “They're more refined simply because it is about a religious idea, so you don't need 100 of these, you need 5 that are really spectacular,” explains Berhendt. “It's a more meaningful way of conceding these artworks.”

When it comes to iconography, artists of the North Indian tradition tend to follow a common vocabulary of motifs—instantly recognisable scenes depicting Durga on her lion, battling Mahishasur in his bull avatar—or Krishna and Radha embracing in the forest of Vrindavan. In the hills, however, things are different. Berhendt indicates an image of Durga battling Mahishasur—a common enough subject, but the style of this painting is like nothing I’ve ever seen. For one, Mahishsur is depicted both in his human form, and then again as an elephant. Not only is the demon not in his most commonly identifiable avatar of the bull—the artist has shown him shape-shifting from one form to the next, creating a sense of linear narrative within the painting. 

“Someone who is clearly reading the text found this interesting passage where Durga cuts off Mahisha's head and he appears as an elephant, and is immediately defeated,” Behrendt says. Another interesting aspect of this work is that Durga is kneeling, rather than standing, on her tiger. “The iconography [is so unique]—it's clear that someone wasn't looking at another artwork. They were reading the text. And so one of the things, in terms of my organisation, was to think about text, and to think about how they were reading them, and then very creatively interpreting them.”

Despite the unique motifs of the Pahari tradition, there are some that are distinctly Mughal or Rajasthani in their style. A painting that especially moved me was one in which Krishna, sitting in the shade of an umbrella and surrounded by cows and devotees, celebrates the coming of the monsoon. The artist has captured the energy and the stillness of the rain—the dark trees and the blooming lotuses brim with life and emotion, and the composition is reminiscent of the raga mala style. “There must have been a lot of exchange of artists,” Behrendt considers. Indeed, Nainsukh and his older brother Manaku, both frontrunners of the Pahari tradition, were inextricably linked with Mughal miniature form. The coming and going of artists from the Mughal courts on the plains to the small mountain kingdoms had a lot more to do with geography than anything else. “You have these valleys coming up into the high mountains, and these courts are up there,” explains Berhendt. “You can't really go from one valley to the next very easily. You have to go back down onto the plains and all the way back up into the mountains—so they were aware of what was happening on the plains. And also I think [the patrons] were just simply fighting over these good artists.”

“What is striking to me is that the things that happen devotionally in Rajasthan find their way up here,” Berhendt continues. One of the most vibrant paintings in the exhibition—and Berhendt’s admitted personal favourite—is of a Raslila, a dance from the mythology of Krishna, and plays with scale and perspective in an exciting way. “They've built up all these layers of colour, the perspective, the jewellery… it's very sophisticated… It's almost like they’re drawing on these North Indian texts, but then being very creative with how they represent them.”

However, not all of the influence came from the plains. Berhendt guides me to a beautiful folio of Bhadrakali being venerated by the gods. “This work is part of a series of 70 paintings that are tantric, and each of them have a set of verses on the back, different ways of evoking Mahadevi,” Berhendt explains. “As a group of 70, you can play out how one might evoke this goddess, which interestingly—and especially given its square format, as opposed to it being rectangular—might relate to Tibetan ideas.” 

At the centre of the exhibition is an extravagantly embroidered festival banner that depicts Krishna’s marriage to Rukmini, and the battle between good and evil that ensues as a result. The banner was at the Victoria and Albert Museum in London before it was acquired by the Islamic department at The Met in 1959—and is being shown for the first time in a specially crafted case. “The only damage anywhere is where the actual dyeing caused the damage,” Berhendt says of the banner’s excellent condition. “So the white where they bleach the silk, it dissolved, and in places where there’s black, they used mordant that again etched the silk.”

When considering the cultural relevance of the Pahari tradition, one must remember: the Pahari courts were small. The patronage was imperial, but from rulers of small kingdoms that didn’t necessarily have a lot of money. “One little valley worth of agricultural land, and yet, they're producing paintings at this really high level,” Berhendt says. “Its very interesting how in this rural context you have stuff like Nainsukh popping up.”

It is fascinating how this relatively small region of the country, from which so few paintings have actually survived, can stand as a testament to how powerful artistic exchange can really be. On view until July 21st, 2019, this exhibition is definitely worth a visit.