Utka Nayika

Product Description

This painting is from the Ashta-Nayika series of Kangra paintings which are based on classification of women as described in classical literature of India.
The lady shown is the Expectant Heroine, Utka Nayika, whose anxiety is roused greatly at her lover’s inability to keep his appointment with her at the promised hour. She waits at the trysting place, and to relieve her anxiety occupies herself in decorating the trees with garlands of jasmine near the place of the expected meeting. In the stillness of the dark night, so admirably shown in this painting, one can almost hear the thumping of her excited heart. The deep blue sky is like a rich purple mass of collyrium. In the narrow horizon at the top is the star-spangled sky decorated by the pale orb of the moon.