Worship

Lahore-based M. A. R. Chughtai trained first under Samarendranath Gupta, a student of Abanindranath Tagore, and later went on to study under the master, too, in Calcutta. However, his stylised watercolour paintings and washes differed from the Bengal School in their larger size. Chughtai’s paintings have an almost fragile delicacy and a soft patina that combine the sacred with the sensual. Here, a worshipper whose identity remains hidden from the viewer, can be seen at an altar marked by a lamp, from which smoke rises sensuously. The presence of a snake may be merely incidental or a marker of Shiva’s presence.