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Krishna celebrates Holi
c. 1770
- Medium
- gum tempera, gold, and silver on paper
- Classification
- Painting
- Dimensions
- Page: 21 x 29.4 cm (8 1/4 x 11 9/16 in.); Image: 15.5 x 23.8 cm (6 1/8 x 9 3/8 in.)
- Culture
- Northern India, Pahari kingdoms
- Museum
- Cleveland Museum of Art, Indian and Southeast Asian Art
- Credit line
- Purchase and partial gift from the Catherine and Ralph Benkaim Collection; Severance and Greta Millikin Purchase Fund
- Rights
- Public domain (CC0), as the museum states it.
- Who can see it
- Tweens profiles and older: its subjects are known and suit older children. How works are placed
View at the Cleveland Museum of Art
About this work
During the festival of Holi, Hindus celebrate the coming of spring by playfully throwing and shooting colored water and powders at one another. Among all the cowherd boys with whom he grew up, Krishna, a Hindu god incarnated on earth, is the only one able to reach the heart of a gopi, or milkmaid, with a well-aimed plunger full of colors. Raucous with sound as well as color, some of the boys play the drum, flute, and horns; girls strum a vina (stringed instrument), play a flute, and blow a whistle.
