Ten-Armed Durga Killing Demon Mahishasura Lot n° 16

This pata-chitra – cloth painting, rendered in vertical format on a fine piece of cloth, a blend of mercerized cotton and silk, using primarily the blue and black and the subdued tones of yellow and green as subsidiary palette, represents the ten-armed Goddess Durga enshrining a magnificent sanctum. Typical of Orissa pata-chitra tradition, in the painting most of the forms and effects are line-drawn, the brush seems to have been used only for rendering background against which such forms are discovered or for rendering the thicker areas, though these could be both, the brush-work as also the densely drawn lines. The judiciously used colours attribute to the white of the background the status of yet another colour – the one like others, and perhaps more effective than any of them, for it is in its contrast that they all find a form, effect and their entire magic. The sanctum’s interior has been conceived with deep lustrous blue, and the sky above, with as dark black. In characteristic Oriya tradition a large number of miniaturized flower-plant-motifs scattered all over break the monotony of this deep blue interior, and the tiny cloud-motifs, rendered in light blue floating in the space above, of the sky. The Oriya pata-chitra painters are unparalleled in creating most delightful effects: a kind of lyricism and rhythmic vibrancy, out of a deep background in blue or even black, which could otherwise be monotonous, by sprinkling over it multiple repeats of any design-motif, even an irrelevant floral pattern, a dot, or whatever. The painting’s pata-chitra character, typical of Orissa tradition, reflects as powerfully in the style of its architecture, especially in the tiered temple-tower, pedestal and the sanctum’s arched opening with moderately deep corbels, and in the beautifully painted facade. The ten-armed goddess is holding in her hands on the right side sword, trident, disc, lotus-bud and an arrow, and in those on the left, snake with shield, conch, mace, bow