How might we read their bodies and gestures in relation to the variety of earlier and contemporary representations of divine, royal and working bodies? How might hero stones be read in relation other forms of portraiture?
The portrait bronzes of Krishnadevaraya and his wives present him as a king, a householder or grishasti and a devotee. The king commissioned them himself and had them installed in the Tirumala Tirupati temple dedicated to Vishnu as Venkateshwara.
The statues pose several questions:
What aesthetics govern the way these images are designed to represent the king and the queens? What are the social roles that Krishnadevaraya and his queens embody in these statues? Krishnadevaraya is presented as the ideal king, householder, man and devotee in one image. How is this achieved? What are the precedents for this sleek group of images and how are they accessed and manipulated to imbue meaning in these figures?