Nasik Scene with Bathers

Part of Trindade’s Nasik series – composed of three oils and five watercolours – executed between 1930 and 1932 as a remarkable account of life in everyday India, Nasik Scene with Bathers conveys the rituals and daily activities of pilgrims and locals in the surroundings of the Sri Sundar Narayan Mandir in the banks of the Godavari River. Here, women and children congregate on the ghat after immersing themselves in the water. Grey and white stone temples lining the shore offset the red and green vests of the bathers. The irregular rhythm of figures in the foreground moves the viewer’s eye across the stream to the repetitive arches of the dominant temple. Bathing in the sacred river is performed to purify the body and soul before stepping into the holy ground and temple.
References: Shihandi, Marcella, et al, António Xavier Trindade: An Indian Painter from Portuguese Goa (exhibition catalogue), Georgia Museum of Art, University of Georgia, 1996; Gracias, Fátima, Faces of Colonial India: The Work of Goan Artist António Xavier Trindade (1870-1935), Panjim, Goa, Fundação Oriente, 2014.