His swollen heart
  Knows neither shame nor pity
  Nor any fear of anger
  How can such a tender bud as I
  Be cast into his hands today?[100]

In yet a third picture, he is portrayed standing outside a house while the lady, the subject of his passions, sits within.  He is once again ’a false gallant,’ his amorous intentions being shown by the orange, a conventional symbol for the breasts, poised lightly in his hand.  As the lady turns to greet him, she puts a dot in the circle which she has just drawn on the wall—­a gesture which once again contains a hint of sex.  On the picture’s reverse the poem records a conversation galante.

  ’Beloved, what are you doing
  With a golden orange in your hand?’
  So said the moon-faced one
  Placing a dot
  On the bright circles
  Painted in the house. [101]

In other pictures, a clown or jester appears, introducing a witty joking element into the scene and thus presenting Krishna’s attitude to love as all-inclusive.

From 1693, the year of Raja Kirpal’s death, painting at Basohli concentrated mainly on portraying rulers and on illustrating ragas and raginis—­the poems which interpreted the moods and spirit of music.  The style maintained its fierce intensity but there was now a gradual rounding of faces and figures, leading to a slight softening of the former brusque vigour.  Devotion to Krishna does not seem to have bulked quite so largely in the minds of later Basohli rulers, although the cult itself may well have continued to exert a strong emotional appeal.  In 1730, a Basohli princess, the lady Manaku, commissioned a set of illustrations to the Gita Govinda and Krishna’s power to enchant not only the male but also the female mind was once again demonstrated.[102]

This series of illustrations is in some ways a turning point in Indian painting for not only was it to serve as a model and inspiration to later artists but its production brings to a close the most creative phase in Basohli art.  After 1730, painting continued to be practised there but no longer with the same fervour.  Basohli artists seem to have carried the style to other states—­to Guler, Jammu, Chamba, Kulu, Nurpur and Bilaspur—­but it is not until 1770 that the Krishna theme again comes into prominence.  In about this year, artists from Guler migrated to the distant Garhwal, a large and straggling state at the far south of the Punjab Hills, taking with them a style of exquisite naturalism which had gradually reached maturity under the Guler ruler, Raja Govardhan Singh.[103] During his reign, a family of Kashmiri Brahmans skilled in the Mughal technique had joined his court and had there absorbed a new romantic outlook.  On at least three occasions they had illustrated scenes from the Bhagavata Purana—­Nanda celebrating Krishna’s birth,[104] Krishna rescuing Nanda from the python which had started to devour his foot,[105] and finally the game of blind man’s bluff[106]—­but their chief subject had been the tender enchantments of courtly love.  Ladies were portrayed longing for their lovers.  The greatest emphasis was placed on elegance of pose.  Fierce distortions were gradually discarded and the whole purpose of painting was to dwell on exquisite figures and to suggest a rapt devotion to the needs of love.