The Spasms of Torment (Bundi School)

Tirukkural (Ancient Tamil classic)

This lady visibly anguished by the separation from her lover stretches her lean body against the prodigious bolster supporting her, crossing her legs against the smaller ones placed against her feet. She does so in an attempt to relieve herself of the physical desire tormenting her. Languishing in the throes of an orgasmic rhapsody she stares dreamily at the moon above her, the light of which illuminates the entire composition. Her attendant begs her with folded hands to put an end to this attempted recreation of the climaxual spasms which would normally have hit her during the course of intense love-making sessions with her lover. Understandably these attempts at self-gratification are futile. The artist has symbolically portrayed this through the vast expanse of bare space enveloping the entire painting.

The lady has released the upper part of her anatomy from the stifling binding of any kind of drape and her left hand plays with her right breast as her companion would have. Her hair, pulled back in the typical Bundi fashion, reveals a wide forehead and falls serpentlike across her left shoulder extending right down the crevice between her globular orbs popularly known the cleavage. On the right side her tresses fall as Ganga flows from the matted locks of Lord Shiva, himself an epitome of sensuality and often referred to as the sensuous yogi. Particularly noteworthy is the transparent garment behind her merging colorwise with the couch on which rests the heroine of this composition.