Symbolism

This past weekend we went to Washington DC to visit the Smithsonian Arthur Sackler Gallery's special exhibit "Garden and Cosmos: The Royal Paintings of Jodhpur" The 60 newly discovered 17th century paintings are from the collection of the royal court of  Mewar-Jodhpur.  They were commissioned and completed for the various Maharajas. The paintings are surprisingly large and tackle the ideas of cosmos especially the challenging concept of 'Brahman.' Not much is known about the artists but scholars have discovered they were hindus as well as muslims. The details and colors are exquisite and the difficult concepts are handled with care and imagination. 

I painted  Illusions  in watercolors and color pencils (size 11 x 14") a few years ago soon after I started listening to lectures on Vedanta, Bhagavad   Gita and Upanishads at the Arsha Vidya Gurukulam.  I was attempting to illustrate the often given example : confusing  snake and rope-  as a way of explaining the illusionary world we live in.  I used one of the photographs of a snake charmer from our various trips to India as a reference.