From around 1672 to the present · Nathdwara, Rajasthan
Pichwai
Large painted cloths hung behind the image of Shrinathji, the form of Krishna worshipped at Nathdwara. They are changed with the seasons and festivals, and belong to the worship itself.
How to recognise it
- Large painted cloth, made to hang behind a shrine
- Shrinathji, a form of Krishna, at the centre
- Scenes keyed to a festival or season: Sharad Purnima, Holi, Govardhan Puja, Raslila
- Temple ritual shown in detail: adornments, offerings, priests and devotees
- From the 19th century, sometimes oil paint and Western foreshortening
Pichwai means, roughly, “that which hangs behind”. The paintings belong to Pushtimarg, the devotional tradition founded by Vallabhacharya, and to its main temple, the Shrinathji temple at Nathdwara, established in about 1672. Painters worked under the temple administration, and for a long time pichwais were made only on the chief priest’s commission, for worship.
A temple keeps sets. The cloths behind the image are changed according to the day, season and festival, and Shrinathji has eight formal viewings a day, each with its own adornment, which painters also recorded. Other pichwais document the worship itself: the food, music, dress and crowds of a festival, which makes them a record of how the faith has been practised. As the sect spread to Gujarat and Mathura, so did the painting. Pilgrims took pichwais home, wealthy families commissioned them, and theatre companies used them as backdrops.
In the 19th century, with Western-style art school painting in fashion, some painters adopted oil paint and realism; Shrinathji’s feet, traditionally shown sideways, began to be foreshortened. Ghasiram Hardev Sharma carried the Nathdwara vision into the 20th century and spread it across India through colour lithography.
What to look for
Pichwais are now Nathdwara’s main export, painted on the town’s Chitron ki gali, the street of paintings, often by several painters working under a master. Ask whether a cloth was made for a temple or for a buyer; both are honest, but they are different things. The festival shown, and the accuracy of its ritual detail, tells you how close the painter was to the temple.