A Splendid Land: Paintings from Royal Udaipur
[Cleveland, OH] Around 1700, artists in Udaipur (a court in northwest India) began creating immersive paintings that express the moods (bhava) of the city’s palaces, lakes, and mountains. These large works and their emphasis on lived experience constituted a new direction in Indian painting.
With paintings on paper and cloth — many on public view for the first time — the exhibition “A Splendid Land: Paintings from Royal Udaipur” explores the visual strategies that artists developed to communicate emotions, depict places, and celebrate water resources.
cleveland.com gushes about the exhibition.
“The overall impression created by ‘Splendid Land’ is that of a kind of earthly paradise. Udaipur is depicted as a stunningly beautiful community living in ecological balance with nature, by the grace of enlightened human interventions motivated and guided by the beneficent Mewar kings.”
The exhibition is organized as a journey that begins at Udaipur’s center and continues outward: first its lakes and lake palaces, then to the city, onward to the surrounding countryside, and finally to the cosmos.
A side trip immerses visitors in the emotions surrounding the monsoon, the annual rains so crucial to Mewar’s prosperity. Throughout, a soundscape by the renowned filmmaker Amit Dutta invites audiences to fully sense—and not just see—the moods of these extraordinary places and paintings.
“A Splendid Land: Paintings from Royal Udaipur” is on view at The Cleveland Museum of Art, Jun. 11 – Sep. 10, 2023.
In addition to its regular daytime hours, The Cleveland Museum of Art is open until 9 p.m. on Wednesdays and Fridays.
#EveryMuseum in America could be open late at least once a month. Most are not. This one is. Support it for supporting those who are unable or unwilling to visit a museum by day.
“A Splendid Land: Paintings from Royal Udaipur” on view at the Cleveland Museum of Art, Jun. 11 – Sep. 10, 2023
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