Nathdwara

Nestled in the Aravalli hills, the bustling town of Nathdwara is famed not just for its Shrinathji (Krishna) temple but also for the traditional artists who are known to live there since the 17th century.

- Madhuvanti Ghose

It is here that the beautiful cloth paintings known as the pichvai took birth.

These artists settled behind the temple in what is known today as the chitrakaron ki gali (artists' street). This is unique, even in a place like India, which has seen the survival of many artistic traditions from the past. Even today, over 300 artists continue to live and practise their art in Nathdwara, keeping this 300-year-old tradition alive.

This special Art issue of AD is dedicated to these artists, as it is to Suresh Sharma, the artist who painted this Morakuti (peacock) pichvai cover especially for AD, a contemporary version inspired by designer Vikram Goyal's brass repousse panels, which in turn are inspired by the traditional Morakuti pichvais of Nathdwara.

Suresh is also one of the founders of the Artists of Nathdwara (AoN), an organization founded in 2015 with the mission of promoting the authentic traditions of the painted pichvai across the world-and to bring its beauty to us all.

The temple town of Nathdwara in Rajasthan has grown around the haveli of Shrinathji, the principal devotional image for the Vaishnava Pushti Marg (the Path of Grace) sect, that was brought here from Vraj (present-day Vrindavan region) in 1672. By the late 15th and the early part of the 16th century, a very powerful devotional (bhakti) movement had developed around Krishna and some of the sacred sites associated with his early life around the banks of the river Yamuna.

Krishna is said to have appeared before the founder of the sect, Vallabhacharya (1479-1531), a Brahmin from the Andhra region, and commanded him to go to Mount Govardhan where he discovered the svarup (the living image of Krishna) of Shri Govardhananathji, who came to be known as Shrinathji to his followers.