The Goddess of Earth & Sita Towing a Boat
| Support Type: | Paper |
| Paint Type: | Watercolor |
| Current Location: | The painting is at a private collection in USA. |
| Location History: | The painting was created in Kashmir in 1922 and was later brought to Sotheby's auction on Mach 21,2022 and is currently at a private collection. |
Saddha Charan Ukil in these works usually shows nature and everyday life as something living: not a background, but a co-author of the plot. In “The Earth Goddess and Sita” one can feel the cult idea - as if the Earth acts as a force that gives life and order, and the image of Sita adds the motif of home, purity and stability, connecting the spiritual and everyday. The composition is probably based on expressive, “ritual” poses and soft plasticity of the figures: the gaze is drawn from the semantic center to the details of the environment - plants, earth, gestures that are read as a request, blessing or reminder of the cycles of life. “Towing a Boat (in Kashmir)” sounds different: it is a more earthly story about work, movement and the road. The boat is pulled by people - and there is tension in this, but without theatricality: you can feel the work of muscles, sliding along the water/shore, the rhythm of effort. Kashmir here is usually perceived as a space of silence and light - soft air, water, distant outlines. The artist conveys not only the action, but also the atmosphere of the place: cool humidity, the calm passage of time, when even heavy movement seems to be part of the natural cycle.