Kerala & Guercino: Raja Ravi Varma & the Italian Master

This painting of Princess Tarabai is done in Raja Ravi Varma's old style, reminiscent of Tanjore style paintings. 

The highlight of the painting is the subject's prominent jewellery and a static expression. Like Tanjore, the painting doesn't reflect emotion.

In this painting of Maharani Chimna Bai, his work had undergone total transformation. 

Notice the careful modelling of the face, capturing the shy beauty of a young bride, the glow of soft and graceful form, complemented by the textures of her brocade sari and velvet background.

Princep, a British artist born in Calcutta, painted during the same period as Raja Ravi Varma, and was a popular court painter in India.

Prinsep was not only a popular artist but also well connected owing to his father Henry Thoby Prinsep's service in the British Raj.

Varma ended the monopoly of these visiting European painters like Prinsep and Theodore Jensen with his superior artistic skills.

A view of the Kilimanoor palace and Ravi Varma's studio

The entrance to Ravi Varma's studio where he spent most of his time from dawn to dusk.

Ravi Varma’s lasting fame rests on his history painting, adapting Victorian salon art to bring to life ancient Indian epics and the Puranas, and literary classics such as Kalidasa. They combined melodrama with moral lessons.

He engaged a traditional reciter to go through the classics to find appropriate stories. Among these stories, he chose themes that stirred emotions and demanded reactions from the viewer. 

The appeal of his heroines lay in the fact that they were not iconographic types but palpable, flesh-and-blood human beings who expressed real human emotions. In this respect, traditional iconography wasn’t much use.

Chanda in her palace from a Laur-Chanda manuscript. The artist illustrates Mohammad Jaisi’s literary text.

Chanda’s growing feeling of love is represented through the scene of spring with flowers and animals. The heroine, however, doesn’t betray any emotion. This is where Ravi Varma was different.

To show deep emotion, sentiment, not to speak of visual beauty, Varma needed a different aesthetic and a different heroine. 

Ravi Varma's fervent wish was that the public should see his works and appreciate them. 

The Bombay Art Society gave exposure to the brothers, as this painting of Keechaka and Sairindhri exemplifies. 

Varma wanted more and wished to set up a public museum where his works could be displayed.

However, this wish remained fulfilled because of complex circumstances.

Mechanical reproductions of paintings were a major device imported from the West that helped spread images through the length and breadth of India. The two brothers set up their press in Lonavla near Bombay, with the assistance of two Germans, Fritz Schleicher and Paul Gerhardt.

There was, however, another area, a modern device, that offered him a great chance to make his works reach the widest audiences.

The tonal quality of Ravi Varma was more complex and nuanced, the colours richer as they emulated original oil colours of his paintings

Above all, his women were soft and voluptuous with flirtatious expressions, real human beings.

The prints were affordable even to the ordinary Indians, and all Indians, irrespective of their social and economic background, were thrilled with them.

There was a distinct and qualitative difference between the prints done at the Ravi Varma Presses and the others in the country.

Prints from the Ravi Varma Press became hugely popular and spread to all parts of the country.

The women that Ravi Varma depicted were beautiful and were instantly relatable.

Ravi Varma's works were admired throughout India and outside the country too. What Ravi Varma sought to convey was that beauty wasn't far to seek.

Ravi Varma's grasp and understanding of mythological tales and scriptures was his greatest advantage.

Ravi Varma's heroines were alluring and beautiful. The play of emotions on Vishwamitra and Menaka's visage is starkly different here.

The hugely popular Mohini on a swing has been recreated many times over after Ravi Varma's creation.

The ethereal beauty with the most common place of element -- the swing, in a forest setting, was a masterstroke.

According to the great poet Rabindranath Tagore: "When Ravi Varma’s age arrived in Bengal, his oleographs quickly replaced the European prints that used to hang in our walls." 

"I would to add that it was his conception of feminine grace and charm that has continued to dominate popular arts in India".