More than three centuries ago, artists at the royal court of Udaipur, India, began creating singular paintings that captured the unique mood (bhava) of the region. These artworks—painted on paper and cloth—are on view in a new exhibition at the National Museum of Asian Art from Nov. 19, 2022, to May 14, 2023. It is the first in a series of exhibitions that celebrates the museum’s centennial in 2023.

A Splendid Land: Paintings from Royal Udaipur zooms in and out of scenes from 18th- and 19th-century life in the lakeside city: soldiers patrolling gleaming palaces, farmers working in their fields, streams, colorful sunsets and imaginative visions of the cosmos that lie just beyond humanity’s view. An evocative soundscape by renowned filmmaker Amit Dutta completes the exhibition—a fully immersive exploration of how artists captured the geographical, artistic, cultural and emotional evolution of early modern Asia over nearly two hundred years