Goddess Kali

West Bengal, Calcutta

Not on view

The awesome goddess Kali is perhaps the most readily recognized of all lithographic prints of this genre. She is seen here in classic form: a beautiful young woman of dark blue-black complexion with wild unbound hair, striding onto the corpse of Shiva that lies prostate in a charnel ground. Ghostly scenes of the tormented fill the background in a grisaille-type monochrome. Kali extends her red tongue fearsomely, and is adorned with macabre garlands of severed heads and limbs. She holds a freshly severed head and wields aloft the blooded sacrificial sword. Her forehead eye, beaming brilliantly, asserts her identity as an emanation of Durga-Parvati, Shiva’s wife and shakti in Tantric Shaivism.

Goddess Kali, Lithograph, printed in black and hand-coloring with watercolor and selectively applied glaze, West Bengal, Calcutta

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