Shiva Linga

Bauwa Devi, who received India's National Master Craftsman Award, among other honors, employs strong linework, bold color, dramatic compositions, and visual intensity. Throughout her career spanning several decades, she has explored images of snakes in folkloric and religious themes, sometimes producing narrative series of several paintings. In this image, she takes on a subject from orthodox Hinduism: the linga (abstract or phallic) form of the deity Shiva. Here the linga is represented by a half-oval shape with a smiling face, surmounted by additional crowning forms. The painting depicts the "one-faced" form of the linga, in which the god's humanlike face is depicted on an otherwise abstracted form. The linga is further adorned with a halolike canopy of two snakes, depicted with bold black outline and bright interior colors, framing the central image and suggesting reverence for the icon. Thus religious subjects from village and temple contexts are represented in a single image, where snakes and linga share an enlivened, animate quality.