Purusa

Artist Guy Anderson (1906 - 1998)

Date1972

MediumLino print on paper

Dimensions25 x 20 cm

ClassificationsPrint

Credit LineCollection & image © Hugh Lane Gallery. © The Estate of Guy Anderson.

Object number1866

DescriptionThis is a four colour relief print (lino). An abstract artwork with the outline of two geometrical shapes in the form of crosses on top of a semicirlce in the shape of a horse shoe. One shape is above the second shape. The central area of the artwork is a deep red brown. On the left are areas of gold on red and pure red painted like a gilded altarpiece that has begun to flake, while on the right the natural white of the paper has been left visible.

'Purusa (Sanskrit, "man", "person") is a spiritual concept in Hindu religion and philosophy. The earliest references in Atharva Veda and Kathaka-Samhita may, according to J. W. Hauer, link purusa with the Vrayta tradition and identify with the Vedic god Rudra. The famous Purusa-sukta (Rg Veda 10. 90) celebrates purusa as a cosmic demiurge, the material and efficient cause of the universe, whose sacrifice and division gave rise to the Veda and all of creation. The early Upanishads and the Bhagavad-Gita use the term to mean an individual's spirit, psyche, essence, or immortal Self. In Sankhya philosophy, purusa is the first principle (tattva), pure contentless consciousness, passive, unchanging, and witness to the unconscious dynamism of Prakti, primordial materiality. Salvation here, as in Yoga philosophy, results from the discrimination of the two ultimate realities.'

Source: John Bowker, The Oxford Dictionary of World Religions, New York, Oxford University Press, 1997, p. 780.

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