Every Thursday, as part of my personal “enriched environment” initiative, I post a piece of art, usually from the Metropolitan Museum of Art, which recently released online some 400,000 high-resolution images of its collection. All artwork will show a sun (or sunlight) somewhere.
I won’t name the piece or the artist, but instead invite you to study the art and post a comment addressing one or more of these questions:
- What is going on in this picture?
- What do you see that makes you say that?
- What more can you find?
If you have another idea, run with it.
Special Update! The New York Times website does this same exercise every Monday with a news photo that is uncaptioned and contains no text (click!). The Times asks viewers the same three questions:
- What is going on in this picture?
- What do you see that makes you say that?
- What more can you find?
However, at the end of the week, the Times posts the background information on the picture. So, I’ve decided to do the same. I’ll still post an unlabeled piece of art on Thursday. But return on Sunday (for the Sunny Sundays post!) and you’ll find an update on the artwork here.
Note: To embiggen the image, click on it!
Radha and Krishna Walk in a Flowering Grove (recto); Krishna Fluting (verso)
Artist: The Kota Master (Indian, active early 18th century)
Date: ca. 1720 (recto); ca. 1750–75 (verso)
Culture: India (Rajasthan, Kota)
Medium: Ink, opaque watercolor, and gold on paper
Dimensions: recto: 7 1/2 x 4 3/8 in. (19.1 x 11.1 cm) verso: 9 x 5 7/8 in. (22.9 x 14.9 cm)
Classification: Paintings
Krishna and Radha gaze into each other’s eyes during a sunset walk. Their love is expressed by the multitude of birds, the flowering trees, and the intertwining of their bodies and garments. This quintessential Indian idea—that nature echoes human passion—is beautifully manifested in this work by a master who has successfully translated emotion into visual delight. The personification of nobles as the lovers Krishna and Radha was a popular pictorial theme in Kota and other Rajasthani courts. The subject relates to the poetry of the time.
I love the man’s blue skin, and isn’t it interesting that he’s wearing sandals which make him taller, while the woman is wearing flats. In Western cultures it’s the other way around.
Usually.
This painting has a lot of birds in it, mostly in pairs but sometimes in groups that suggest a family, at least to me. My single question is, is that the setting sun or the rising sun in the background? Is it the dawn of a new day, or is night about to come on and this romantic couple are about to go to bed?
The lawn they are standing on is kind of bulbous at the bottom of the picture, then narrows as it goes into the background, kind of like a gourd. I like Afua’s question re: whether the sun is setting in the background (dusk) or rising (dawn).
I bet nobody noticed this-the color scheme of this painting matches the banner at the top of the Parking Suns screen!