Love by the Book

Poetic treatises on the nature of love inspired the subject matter of many Indian paintings made during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Taking their cue from poetic texts such as the Satasai and the Rasikapriya, artists expressed the nuances of romance through their intricate and sensitive brushstrokes.

This installation of paintings from the museum’s collection looks at the modes of love as seen through artistic eyes. From shy first encounters to anxious separations, from misunderstandings to blissful entanglements, these representations of the joy and heartache of human relationships give to universal human experiences the delicacy and color of finely woven Indian silk.