401 - DANCING BRONZE SHIVA INDIA 16TH CENTURY OR EARLIER

DANCING BRONZE SHIVA INDIA 16TH CENTURY OR EARLIER Dimensions: Height 30,5 cm Wide 22 cm Depth 10 cm Weight: 3228 grams An unusually open and rhythmic bronze image of Shiva in dance, balancing on one leg above a high lotus-form pedestal. The body twists through a sweeping diagonal: one leg is lifted almost horizontally, one arm reaches far outward, and the remaining arms fan around the torso in a broad arc. The deity wears a tall crown, necklaces, armlets and an ornamented girdle, but the sculpture is dominated less by jewellery than by movement. Green and brown patination covers the surface, with lighter rubbed passages along the projecting limbs and details. Dance is one of the most powerful ways in which Shiva is imagined in Hindu art. It allows the god to embody apparently opposite forces at once: creation and destruction, stillness and energy, discipline and ecstatic movement. In this bronze, the sculptor has made that paradox physical. The central torso remains poised and composed while the limbs extend into the surrounding space, making the empty intervals between them as important as the metal itself. The figure is especially effective at this relatively large scale because the pose can be read from a distance before the finer details of crown, jewellery and costume come into focus. The surviving devotional threads tied around the arms and waist give the image an immediate sense of continued ritual life, while the rich green patina reinforces the bronze's strongly sculptural presence.