What is the major theme used in Kangra Painting?

Nayak and Nayika Bheda

The correct answer is Option 3-  Nayak and Nayika Bheda

Beginning at Basohli with a coarsely flamboyant style, it blossomed into the most exquisite and sophisticated style of Indian painting known as the Kangra School, through the Guler or pre-Kangra phase.

B. N. Goswamy, one of the most significant scholars of the Pahari Schools of Painting, has attributed the shaping of Pahari style from the simplicity of Basohli to poetic lyricism and refinement of Kangra to the ingenuity of a family of artists through his scholarly approach of family as the basis of style.

Painting in the Kangra region blossomed under the patronage of a remarkable ruler, Raja Sansar Chand (1775–1823). It is believed that when Prakash Chand of Guler came under grave financial crisis and could no longer maintain his atelier, his master artist, Manaku, and his sons took service under Sansar Chand of Kangra.

The Kangra style is by far the most poetic and lyrical of Indian styles marked with serene beauty and delicacy of execution. Characteristic features of the Kangra style are delicacy of line, brilliance of colour and minuteness of decorative details. Distinctive is the delineation of the female face, with straight nose in line with the forehead, which came in vogue around the 1790s is the most distinctive feature of this style.

Depiction of Ashta Nayikas or eight heroines is one of the most painted themes in Pahari paintings, involving the depiction of women in various dispositions and emotive states. To mention a few — Utka is the one who is anticipating the arrival of her beloved and patiently waits for him, Svandhinpatika is the one whose husband is subject to her will, Vasaksajja awaits her beloved’s return from a voyage and decorates the bed with flowers in a welcoming gesture, and Kalahantarita is the one who resists her beloved when he seeks to soften her pride and repents when he comes late.

Even though describing Ashta Nayikas remained a favourite among poets and painters, none of them is treated with as much flair as the Abhisarika, one who hastens to meet her beloved braving all hazards. The situation conceived is, generally, full of bizarre and dramatic possibilities with the passion and steadfastness of the nayika, triumphing against the opposing elements of nature