KRISHEN KHANNA (B. 1925)

"From the Mahabharata's rich fount of dramatic confrontations, Khanna has repeatedly returned to the subject of the dying Bhishma Pitamah, patriarch of the Pandava and Kaurava clans, who is driven by an abiding sense of duty. In an extraordinary discourse, the dying Bhishma Pitamah speaks about the duties of a king to the very kinsmen, the Pandavas, who injured him in battle. His discourse, spread over a period of 58 days, and alleviated by his own power to determine the moment of his dying are a powerful document to issues of survival, to the interpretations of dharma or righteousness and desire, and the ideals of kingship. [Khanna's]... Mahabharata paintings that bear all the signs of a bygone age are the artist's engagement with the moral contradictions of the great epic." (Gayatri Sinha, Krishen Khanna: The Embrace of Love, Mapin Publishing, Ahmedabad, 2005, pp. 30-31)