2004-5 Cloud Messenger
This project is based on a poem titled Meghaduta (Cloud Messenger) by India’s greatest
Sanskrit poet, Kalidasa (c. 400-500 AD). His surviving work includes plays, epic
poems and lyric poems. Cloud Messenger is among the latter -- a remarkable love poem.
It is a story of a Yaksha (a semi-god) who has been banished for a year to a remote
mountain for neglecting his duty to his master, Kubera, the god of wealth. After
eight months of separation from his beloved young wife, he sees a cloud touching
the mountaintop and the poem is a long monologue of the Yaksha to the cloud. He asks
the cloud to carry his message of love to his wife. He then goes on to describe the
journey the cloud will take to his wife’s distant dwelling and their meeting. It
is a vibrantly visual poem filled with sensuous detail. After studying many translations
of the poem I rewrote the story in ninety verses to put it in a more accessible voice
for the contemporary reader, taking some liberties for artistic expression and story
clarity. I then created ninety 8 ½” X 8 ½” paintings to accompany the verses.
- acrylic on paper
- the project is unpublished
sample gallery of 24 images
use < > to enlarge and navigate
