Vishnu on Ananta, the Endless Serpent
1700
unspecified
From the collection of Cleveland Museum of Art
1700
unspecified
From the collection of Cleveland Museum of Art
Vishnu on Ananta, the Endless Serpent is a 1700 unspecified by Unknown, a Baroque work, depicting Himachal Pradesh, held at Cleveland Museum of Art.
You see a blue-skinned god lying on a giant snake that coils across a dark sea. Pink lotus flowers float around him, and a smaller figure kneels at his feet. This painting comes from a small kingdom in the Himalayan foothills. Artists there worked for local rulers, not big cities, so their names are often lost. The snake, Ananta, means "endless"—it holds up the universe while Vishnu dreams it into being. To see more quiet, colorful scenes like this, look up the subject Pahari region.
Before the creation of the world, the god Vishnu was asleep on the serpent Ananta, floating on the cosmic ocean. When the time came for him to create the world, Vishnu’s wife Lakshmi woke him gently by massaging his feet. Then, out of his navel emerged a lotus flower, and Vishnu gave birth to Brahma, the god of creation. As plants that grow in water, lotus flowers indicate the presence of the waters and their life-affirming capacity. In this painting they are boldly distributed over a deep brown background with basket-weave patterning.
The artist has depicted Vishnu’s oceanic abode as a lotus pond.
Read the full account in the museum source.
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