Lha-mo   This great Shakti (energizing force) is the patron Goddess of the Dalai Lama. She is worshipped always, but especially during the last seven days of the year. She has many names, one of which is Kali, the destroyer. She is terrible and merciless and she destroys wildly, without regard for any past conditions. Everything falls before her through flame, or flood, or chaotic accidents. She is found superbly actualized in this painting. It is one of those precious banners which is labeled throughout to aid in the invocation of the deity herself. Inside the flame-shield halo she is solidified. The similarities amidst some of the sharp flame areas make the eyes move to and fro, jumping from one form to another. Sometimes there are detours as a body sinks into a dark pool. The great number of diagonal eye movements seem to whip up the flames to a jabbing fierceness. There is another thing that happens -- even without the knowledge of the icons -- as the eye dashes darkly across the figure of Lha-mo in her central position. The flames seem to flicker faster and faster, as if we were piling one subliminal image of flames on top of another. In this intensity she keeps growing larger for, as the eye crosses over her, there is a disorientation and all notion of size is lost. Whatever size the viewer first imagined her to be is constantly being doubled: as smaller flame-enwrapped figures are seen, they assume her size. Looking back, she is larger still -- always larger and larger, as the eye crosses from flame shield to flame shield. She becomes so great that the painting does not seem able to be able to contain her image, yet she continues to grow. As long as there is someone looking this will happen to the point of infinity. This is a fact of the optics of the painting. Next
	Table of Content | HOME