Vishnu

Description

The features that identify Vishnu are almost universal across India: he is crowned and robed as a king and has four arms, which hold a club, a lotus bud, a discus, and a conch. Beyond that, however, artists could and did alter deities’ jewelry and costumes to reflect local fashion; and they frequently changed the proportions and even the emotive impact of an image. In this case a bronze caster from Kerala, a state on the southwest coast of India, imparted an imposing dignity to the small image with the addition of a flaming halo, topped by a fierce kirtimukha (a demon-like head, known as the “face of glory”).
Exhibited in "Divine Encounters, Earthly Pleasures: Twenty Centuries of Indian Art," 12/12/03-2/22/04.