Art from the ‘splendid’ Udaipur on view in Cleveland

From June 11 to September 10, 2023, the Cleveland Museum of Art presents “A Splendid Land: Paintings from Royal Udaipur”

Source: Cleveland Museum of Art · Image: Maharana Swarup Singh and Courtiers Play Holi at the City Palace, c. 1851.Tara.Opaque watercolor and goldon paper; 92.2 × 125.5 cm.The City Palace Museum, Udaipur, 2012.19.0012

Around 1700, artists in Udaipur (a court in northwest India) began creating immersive paintings that convey the mood (bhava) of the city’s palaces, lakes, and mountains. These large paintings and their emphasis on lived experience have never been the focus of an exhibition.

With dazzling paintings on paper and cloth—many on public view for the first time—“A Splendid Land” reveals how artists visualized emotions, depicted places, celebrated water resources and fostered personal bonds over 200 years in the rapidly changing political and cultural landscapes of early modern South Asia.

The exhibition is organized as a journey that begins at Udaipur’s center and continues outward: first to the city, then to the countryside, and finally to the cosmos.

“A Splendid Land: Paintings from Royal Udaipur” is organized by the Freer Gallery of Art and Arthur M. Sackler Gallery, the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Asian Art, in collaboration with the City Palace Museum, Udaipur, administered by the Maharana of Mewar Charitable Foundation.

All exhibitions at the Cleveland Museum of Art are underwritten by the CMA Fund for Exhibitions. Principal annual support is provided by Michael Frank in memory of Patricia Snyder. Major annual support is provided by the Womens Council of the Cleveland Museum of Art. Generous annual support is provided by Cynthia and Dale Brogan, Dr. Ben and Julia Brouhard, Mr. and Mrs. Walter R. Chapman Jr., Janice Hammond and Edward Hemmelgarn, Carl T. Jagatich, Eva and Rudolf Linnebach, Carl and Lu Anne Morrison, Henry Ott-Hansen, and Margaret and Loyal Wilson.

The Cleveland Museum of Art is funded in part by residents of Cuyahoga County through a public grant from Cuyahoga Arts & Culture. This exhibition is supported in part by the Ohio Arts Council, which receives support from the State of Ohio and the National Endowment for the Arts.