See These Newly Restored Massive Paintings Devoted to a Hindu God

The artworks, part of a new exhibition at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Asian Art, help shed light on a traditional religious practice

Alicia Ault - Museums Correspondent

March 19, 2025

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A regal, indigo-painted portal cuts between a virtual landscape of green hedges and blue skies with high puffy clouds, while playful flute tunes resound through the exhibition’s entrance. Inside, centered on an orange wall, is a 6-by-3-foot painting of the Hindu god Krishna in the form of Shrinathji, a 7-year-old child. The blue-skinned figure, draped in necklaces and garlands, appears to be playing with an orange scarf, while four cows gaze up from below his feet.

The painting is one of 14 such works—known as pichwais—in “Delighting Krishna: Paintings of the Child-God,” on display at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Asian Art through August 24. The pieces date from the 18th to the 20th century.

The pichwai (from the Hindi word for “behind”) is a central element of the Hindu Pushtimarg tradition. These often-monumental paintings—some are as big as 8-by-10 feet—all depict Krishna as a child and are designed to be hung behind sculptures or icons of the deity. Traditionally they are found in temples, but some are hung at home.

According to the Pushtimarg tradition, devotees gain spiritual insight and grace through taking care of and delighting in the Krishna-child. The pichwais on display in the exhibition depict Krishna as joyous—playing his flute, dancing, making mischief and protecting his community.

Pushtimarg devotees act as parents to the Krishna-child, tending to his needs eight times daily through rituals, offering food, flowers, jewelry, music and song in the spaces where the pichwais hang. Pichwais are put up and removed depending on the season or festival, with each depicting Krishna in a different form of dress or activity.

The pichwais and rituals work together to increase the feeling of emotional attachment to Krishna, says National Museum of Asian Art curator Debra Diamond.

The Shrinathji pichwai at the entrance to the exhibition dates to the late 19th or early 20th century, a few hundred years after the sage Vallabha (1479-1531) established the Pushtimarg tradition. The Pushtimarg have strong historical ties to the Indian states of Gujarat and Rajasthan. Devotees can be found in East Africa, the United Kingdom, Australia, Canada and the United States, where temples have been established in Illinois, New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania and Texas, among other states.

Initially, pichwais consisted mainly of floral or patterned cloths, usually hand-woven. In the mid-18th century, artists began to paint on cotton cloth, weaving in gold and incorporating pigments that were popular in India and parts of Europe. The new approach to pichwai artistry likely emerged as the popularity of paintings on paper increased around this time in India, says Diamond.

Few pichwai artists signed their work until the rise of Ghasiram Hardev Sharma around the late 19th century or turn of the 20th century. Sharma was the master of the painting and photography workshops in Nathdwara, the epicenter of pichwai artistry. He had learned some of his naturalistic painting techniques from an uncle who studied at the Slade School of Fine Art in London, says Diamond. Sharma’s father was also a painter. As an accomplished photographer, Sharma “sometimes borrowed the aesthetic qualities of photographs to enliven traditional themes in his narrative paintings,” Diamond says.

A large drawing by Sharma is among two dozen other artworks included in the exhibition.

The pichwais are part of the museum’s collection, gathered over the years. Temples hang up and take down pichwais multiple times a day or week, depending on the ritual or festival being celebrated, says Diamond. The paintings get reused until they are too faded or damaged and then are often discarded. In the late 1960s and early 1970s, artist and designer Karl B. Mann was able to purchase discarded pichwais by the pound, she says. Mann’s donations are integral to the museum’s collection.

When the museum decided to mount the exhibition, staff found that many of the pichwais were fragile. Some had been frequently rolled and unrolled. Others had been modified in ways that stressed the thin cotton on which they were painted. The museum secured funding to stabilize the paintings and their pigments, which preserved their integrity and allowed them to be displayed.

It was a delicate balance, says conservator Jenifer Bosworth, who, along with colleagues, spent three years getting the 14 pichwais into shape. “What we are looking to do is to present the objects visually not too differently than how they came to us,” says Bosworth.

Patches applied over the years by pichwai artists were left alone unless they visually obscured an image or were causing more damage. These patches were evident on the backs of the pichwais, and sometimes on the front, where conservators could see misalignments, she says.

Repairs made during a pichwai’s lifetime are “part of the history of the object,” which the conservators aimed to maintain, says Bosworth.

Conservation scientist Jennifer Giaccai used technology such as X-ray fluorescence and ultraviolet light to identify chemical elements in the material. Her work contributes to pichwai scholarship. Pigment types used by pichwai painters over time have been documented but not definitively verified. From the early 19th century to the 20th century, a lot of human-made pigments were being introduced throughout the world, including in India.

Giaccai determined that pichwai painters “were really taking advantage of all the new materials that came their way.” That allowed them, for instance, to replace a copper chloride-based green pigment that ate away the pichwai fabric “with the new green pigment imported from Europe that was not as corrosive,” she says.

Just as there are many Hindu traditions to access the divine, the museum presents many lenses through which to view the pichwais. Some paintings are accompanied by captions written not just by the curator, but also by scientists, conservators, a professor of religion and members of the Pushtimarg community.

“The Pushtimarg community members most often spoke about the emotional response expressed in or engendered by a pichwai,” says Diamond.

Diamond says the experience of working with the Pushtimarg members was unique. She and other staffers spent a few days at one of the main temples, the Vraj Hindu Temple in central Pennsylvania. The community members were “deeply collaborative,” says Diamond, and “they approached us with joy.”

The museum is also collaborating with the Artists of Nathdwara, a collective in India that is preserving and continuing the pichwai tradition. Paintings by the group will be sold at the museum.

Diamond says she hopes that, in addition to learning about the tradition, visitors come away with the understanding that “India produces great art.”

Alicia Ault | | Read More

Alicia Ault is an independent journalist whose work has appeared in the New York Times, the Washington Post, Medscape Medical News, WebMD and Wired. She splits her time between St. Petersburg, Florida, Washington, D.C., and New Orleans, exploring the rich variety of food, music, art and culture on offer in those cities.