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Lot Essay
“Pyne depicts a woman sheathed in red, wearing a curious tiara on her hair, within the perimeters of a boat. Her iconic pose, with a cobra paying homage to her, suggests that she may be Manasha, the goddess of snakes worshipped in Bengal.
A mysterious light radiates from the blue-skinned goddess to fill the atmosphere — the colour blue being traditionally used to suggest poison as in Shiva’s throat, neelkantha. Another snake is draped around her shoulders as a garland. The tiara is explained if she is Manasha, the goddess who is depicted even today wearing the snake on her head.
From Indian mythology Pyne has fashioned his own character of the woman as goddess in whom we sense, as the artist himself admits, a latent quality of evil power”
- G. Sen, Ganesh Pyne, Revelations, Calcutta, 1999, p. 76.
A mysterious light radiates from the blue-skinned goddess to fill the atmosphere — the colour blue being traditionally used to suggest poison as in Shiva’s throat, neelkantha. Another snake is draped around her shoulders as a garland. The tiara is explained if she is Manasha, the goddess who is depicted even today wearing the snake on her head.
From Indian mythology Pyne has fashioned his own character of the woman as goddess in whom we sense, as the artist himself admits, a latent quality of evil power”
- G. Sen, Ganesh Pyne, Revelations, Calcutta, 1999, p. 76.