Smithsonian National Museum Of Asian Art, Washington DC

The Smithsonian National Museum of Asian Arts holds more than 46,000 objects dating from antiquity to the present from China, Japan, Korea, South Asia, Southeast Asia, and the Middle East as well as an important collection of nineteenth- and early twentieth-century American works from the Aesthetic Movement. New acquisitions are constantly added, and the museum now showcases the richness of premodern Asian arts and the evolving visual cultures of Asia in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. Utilizing the museum's world-class library and archives, visitors can explore nearly every region and historic period of Asia and the Islamic world, and scholars will find value in exemplary objects as springboards for research.

Pushtimarg religious spaces feature monumental paintings of Krishna on cotton cloth known as pichwais. For the first time since the 1970s, these fourteen pichwais from the National Museum of Asian Art’s collections are on view for the public. These paintings are literally larger than life, averaging about eight by eight feet in size. Pichwais are made to serve as backdrops for three-dimensional displays, typically paired with icons of Krishna, music, and scents. This collection of pichwais dates from the eighteenth to the twentieth century, and most were painted in Nathdwara, Rajasthan, the global epicenter of the Pushtimarg community.

Encounter these intriguing paintings from multiple angles through insights from Hindu community members, curators, conservators, and a conservation scientist. Alongside the pichwais, court paintings illuminate Krishna’s playful charm, and mixed-media works show how the Pushtimarg tradition engages the senses. Awash with color and brimming with joy, these artworks themselves invite delight.