Charming Krishna: Madhurastakam

"Charming Krishna" is a collection of forty-eight paintings inspired by the devotional hymn "Madhurastakam" of Sri Vallabhacarya, a Telugu Sage-Philosopher who established his school called Pusti Marga. The Path of Grace, in North India during the sixteenth century. This tradition prescribes a constant love-suffused worship of Sri Krishna by various acts of homage, such as singing (kirtana), remembering (smarana), beholding a beatific image of the deity (darshana), and offering of services (seva). These acts enable the devotee to enter into the divine presence of Sri Krishna and to experience his real essence (svarupa). The worship involves consecration of all acts by complete self-surrender and by a mystical participation in the divine pleasures of Lord Krishna. Rozalia (now known as Radhika Priya) was initiated into this tradition by noless an authority than Dau Baba Goswami, the main priest of Sri Nathaji's Goswami, the main priest of Sri Nathaji's temple. She has spent over a decade mastering the genre unique to the Nathadvara School of Painting. The "Madhurastakam" evokes Krishna as a supreme embodiment of love, bliss and beauty. The compositions are set within red arched windows. Blooming lotuses,silvery lakes, moons, groves and dancing peacocks fill the inner spaces in and around the rarefied portraits of the divine lovers. These poetic representations break away from traditional Nathadvara painting in that they re-express the concept of the bhakti-bhava of Pusti Marga in a contemporary idiom. The works are an intimate form of citra-seva, personal offerings in the form of a painted icon, meant to be used as an instructional device for contemplation.