KALI IN HINDU ART

In art Kali is most often portrayed with blue or black skin, naked,
and wearing a Bengali type crown of clay which is painted or
gilded. She is, like many Hindu deities, a multiple armed figure
with the number of arms being four, eight, ten, twelve, or even
eighteen. Each arm usually holds an object and these can include
a sword, dagger, trident, cup, drum, chakra, lotus bud, whip,
noose, bell, and shield. Sometimes her left hand forms
theabhaya mudra, whilst the right makes the offering varada
mudra. She is often represented seated with legs crossed and
having eight feet.
Kalis most common pose in paintings is in her most fearsome
guise as the slayer of demons, where she stands or dances with
one foot on a collapsed Shiva and holds a severed head. She
wears a skirt of severed human arms, a necklace of decapitated
heads, and earrings of dead children, and she often has a
terrifying expression with a lolling tongue which drips blood.