The tree floats in the air, branches above and roots below, two arms from behind the thick trunk embrace it. The composition fills the entire space; the dark umbar colored tree dominates the center, on the right a rider in bronze military armor, ax raised high, and on the left Amrita in village garb, barefoot, embracing a tree, her daughters’ severed heads at her feet. Directly below the tree four women, like Egyptian goddesses, stand erect shoulder to shoulder facing the viewer.
Nutan Mishra a self-taught painter from Sitamarhi, Bihar painted Amrita Ka Balidaan (Amrita’s Sacrifice) as dual homage to a historical three-hundred-year-old event as well as to Chipko, an ecological movement with a large participation by women that began in the 1970s to protect the lower Himalayan mountains of north India from deforestation. A hugged tree is taken as a symbol of the movement.
Amrita’s Sacrifice took place in the 1730s when a Maharajah in Rajasthan sent soldiers to cut down trees for a new palace. The villages in the area however were part of the Bishnoi community which considers nature sacred and to be protected. To stop the soldiers from cutting a tree Amrita Devi offered them her head instead, “Saving a tree was worth the loss of one’s head.” Her three daughters followed suit. Seeing their sacrifice other villagers stepped forward. Over 360 in all, young and old, were thus beheaded before the soldiers stopped and rode away leaving the trees uncut.
Painted in neon acrylic on Salita, a rough cotton cloth, the 39″ x 39″ painting is a bit of color shock at first but the strong triangular composition, as well as the carefully chosen individual colors, hold the work together. The yellow background serves as canvas for the dark trunk of the tree, the green of the branches, the bronze of the rider’s armor, the dark green of Amrita’s skirt and the orange of her head covering. The four elegantly dressed women are all in red tones – magenta, orange,red, and rose. They reference a black and white photograph from 1973 of village women protecting a tree in an attempt to stop logging in their area.
But instead of presenting them as village women Nutan Mishra chose to portray them as goddess guardians of the forest – thus connecting them with the Bishnoi community’s sacrifice centuries earlier.
Signed by Nutan Mishra, neon acrylic on Salita (rough cotton cloth), 39in x 39in, 2019.
Acquired in December 2020 by Radford University Art Museum, for display at Radford University’s Selu Conservancy
