Mortals, Archetypes, and Divinity: a multi-layered painting

In this painting, I have combined imagery from a number of sources: observations from my trips to India, my love of European art history, and my fascination with Indian classical art.

Existence appears to be layered or multi-dimensional. Here I place regular humans (the ladies at the bottom), beings from the archetypical (spirit or angelic) realm (in the middle), and the divine level (at the top).

The colorfully dressed women at the bottom of the painting are performing a Hindu ritual of purification: pouring milk into the Ganges.

In the middle section of the painting, I placed characters found in classical European art. "Venus and Cupid with a Satyr" (c. 1528) is a painting by the Italian late Renaissance artist Correggio depicting a satyr observing Venus sleeping with her son Eros. Next to her is "The Farewell of Telemachus and Eucharis" by Jacques-Louis David (1818). Telemachus, the son of Odysseus, fell passionately in love with the beautiful nymph Eucharis. His duty as a son, however, required that he end their romance and depart in search of his missing father. Renaissance artists often painted mythological, archetypical subjects.


Concerning the goddess at the top of the painting, I was inspired by two classical Indian sculptures, one of a a dancing celestial deity (Devata) from the early 12th century, Uttar Pradesh, currently in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and another sculpture, also at the Metropolitan Museum of the goddess Durga. I have added the many arms of Durga. The angel wing next to the divinity in my painting evokes spiritual ascension.


Water is fascinating to paint because it reflects so many colors and takes so many different forms and rhythms. As a compositional element, it was useful for me as an element of cohesion for the various subjects in the painting. A prevailing belief that is shared by most, if not all Hindus is the importance of physical and spiritual cleanliness and well-being... a striving to attain purity and avoid pollution. This widespread aspiration lends itself to a reverence for water as well as the integration of water into most Hindu rituals, as it is believed that water has spiritually cleansing powers. So all of my subjects are immersed in the purifying waters.