Women at a Sacred Tank

Paritosh Sen was a painter of reality, his sensibility honed by his immediate surroundings. His keen interest in observing people in a social milieu fueled his interest in the figurative idiom. In this work, Women at a Sacred Tank, Sen has painted a morning scene depicting women praying near a water tank. The colours, the architectural forms, and human figures, are bathed in a strong light. The figures are rounded with a deliberate exaggeration of robustness. The canvas reveals traces of cubism, as also a complex interplay between modernist values and native traditions.