Have you ever had a thought of who might be the creator of the calendar/photograph(depicting Goddesses lakshmi & saraswati)pasted inside your safety locker or in the puja mandir.Well,if you really wanna know,who he is?
Raja Ravi Varma
would be the answer.
He was an Indian painter from Kerala State who achieved recognition for his depiction of scenes from the epics of the Mahabharata and Ramayana. His paintings are considered to be among the best examples of the fusion of Indian traditions with the techniques of European academic art.His dazzling oil paintings of India’s ancient glory and his mass reproductions through oleography reached out to the Indian populace in an unprecedented scale.
Born on April 29,1848,in Kilimanoor,a small hamlet in the southern state of Kerala,he was not the only person popular in his family,his whole family was busy in different art forms.
Ravi Varma used the indigenous paints made from leaves, flowers,tree bark and soil.He cleverly picked the particularly touching stories and moments from the Sanskrit classics.His exposure in the west came when he won the first prize in Vienna Art Exhibition in 1873.
The small town of Kilimanoor was compelled to open a post office, as letters with requests for paintings arrived from every where.
He was convinced that mass reproduction of his paintings would initiate millions of Indians to real Art, and in 1894 he set up an oleography press called the Ravi Varma Pictures Depot. For photo-litho transfers, the Pictures Depot relied on Phalke's Engraving & Printing whose proprietor, Dhundiraj Govind Phalke, became famous as dadasaheb of Indian Cinema a few years later.
From 1888 to 1894,Ravi Varma and his younger brother C.Raja Raja Varma took a tour around India,in search of images and landscapes for inspiration.On his return from the second tour,Ravi Varma painted a batch of pictures especially for reproduction at his new press, the Picture Depot.The aristocratic orientalism in his imagery was now replaced by a little more folkish, more iconic and more marketable forms.And there was no looking back for this legend.
Raja Ravi Varma died of diabetes on October 2, 1906, in his Kilimanoor Palace home filled with friends,relatives,dignitaries and the media.
Ravi Varma is particularly noted for his paintings depicting episodes from the story of Dushyanta and Shakuntala, and Nala and Damayanti, from the Mahabharata.
Village Belle
Lady Lost in Thought
Damayanti Talking to a Swan
The Orchestra
Arjuna and Subhadra
Lady with lemon
The Heartbroken
Swarbat Player
Shakuntala
Lord Krishna as Ambassador
Jatayu, a bird devotee of Lord Rama is mauled by Rawana
Victory of Indrajit
A Family of Beggars
A Lady Playing Swarbat
Lady Giving Alms at the Temple
Lord Rama Conquers Varuna
Nair Woman
Romancing Couple
Draupadi Dreading to Meet Kichaka
Shantanu and Matsyagandha
Shakuntala Composing a Love Letter to King Dushyanta
Girl in Sage Kanwa's Hermitage (Rishi-Kanya)
Are some of the popular paintings of him,which I am sure you have seen before,but will start recognizing after reading this piece.