2. Raja Ravi Rama
Varma
Born :April 29, 1848
Kilimanoor
Died :October 2, 1906
Kilimanoor
Occupation : Painter
Signature :
3. Early life
Raja Ravi Varma was born as Ravi Varma Koil Thampuran
Of Kilimanoor palace. His father Ezhumavail Bhattatiripad
was an accomplished scholar, and his mother Umayamba
Thampuratti was a poet and writer whose work Parvati
Swayamwaram was published by Raja Ravi Varma after
her death. He was trained in water painting by Rama
Swami Naidu and later in oil painting by Theodor Jenson.
All were impressed by his amazing talent to draw. His
father gave him support and trained him under famous
artists. As a boy of five, he filled the walls of his house with
pictures of animals and illustrations from everyday life.
4. His uncle the artist Raja Raja Varma recognized his talents
and gave him elementary art lessons. He was taken to
Thiruvanathapuram in his fourteenth year to stay in the
royal palace and learn oil painting. During these formative
years the young Ravi Varma had many opportunities to
discover and learn new techniques and media in the field of
painting. His later years spent in Mysore, Baroda and other
parts of the country enabled him to sharpen and expand his
skills and blossom into a mature and complete painter.
5. Personal life
Raja Ravi Varma was married to Pururuttathi Nal
Bhageerathi Amma Thampuratti of the Royal House of
Mavelikara and they had two sons and three daughters.
Their eldest son, Kerala Varma, went missing in 1912. Raja
Ravi Varma’s eldest daughter, Mahaprabha, appears in two
of his prominent paintings. Many films had released
showing his life. Renjith Desai, a Marathi novelist had
written his biography in the form of novel in Marathi
language.
7. Art career
Raja Ravi Varma received widespread acclaim after he
won an award for an exhibition of his paintings at Vienna in
1873. Raja Ravi Varma’s paintings were also sent to the
World’s Columbian Exposition held in Chicago in 1893 and
he was awarded two gold medals. He travelled throughout
India in search of subjects. He often modeled Hindu
Goddesses on south Indian women, whom he considered
beautiful. Ravi Varma is particularly noted for his paintings
depicting episodes from the story of Dushyanta and
Shakuntala, and Nala and Damayanti, from Mahabharata.
8. Ravi Varma’s representation of mythological characters
has become a part of the Indian imagination of the epics.
He is often criticized for being too showy and sentimental
in his style. However his work remains very popular in
India. His many fabulous paintings are available at Lakshmi
Vilas Palace of Vadodara. During his time Varma is most
famous for his paintings of sari-clad women portrayed as
shapely and graceful. Varma’s paintings became an
important motif in of the time, reproductions being found in
almost every middle-class home. His exposure in the west
came when he won the first prize in the Vienna Art
Exhibition in 1873. Raja Ravi Varma died in 1906 at the
age of 58. He is considered among the greatest painters
10. in the history of Indian art. Many of his oil paintings are
classic and his unique Indian style has later influenced
artists and designers worldwide.
Raja Ravi Varma owed his success to a systematic training
, first in the traditional art of Thanjavoor, and then in
European art. His paintings can be broadly classified into:
1. Portraits,
2. Portrait-based compositions,
3. Theatrical compositions based on myths and legends
Though the artist’s immense popularity lay in the third
category, the first two types of works prove his merit as an
exceedingly sensitive and competent artist. No other
painter till today has been able to supersede Ravi Varma in
11. portraiture in the oil medium.
Ravi Varma is considered as modern among traditionalists
and a rationalist among moderns. He provided a vital link
between the traditional art and the contemporary, between
the Thanjavoor School and Western Academic realism.
He bought Indian painting to the attention of the larger
world. The glittering career of Raja Ravi Varma is a
striking case study of academic art in India. In the year
following his death, the ‘Modern Review’ described him as
the greatest artist of modern India, a national builder who
showed the moral courage of a gifted ‘high-born’ in taking
up the ‘degrading profession of painting’. He was courted
assiduously by the British Empire as well as by the Indian
12. Maharajas. His less expensive prints of his Hindu deities
hung in every home.
Galaxy of Musician
13. Honours
In 1904 Viceroy Lord Curzon, on behalf of the King
Emperor bestowed upon Raja Ravi Varma the Kaiser-i-
Hind Gold Medal. At this time his name was mentioned as
“Raja Ravi Varma” for the first time, raising objections from
Maharajah Moolam Thirunal of Travancore and besides, as
per the Marumakkathayam tradition, the name of the
maternal uncle was prefixed to the name. Thereafter he
always referred to as Raja Ravi Varma.
In 1993, art critic Rupika Chawla and artist A Ramachandra
n jointly curated a large exhibition of Raja Ravi Varma’s
14. works at the National Museum, New Delhi. Considering his
vast contribution to Indian art, the Government of Kerala
has instituted an award called Raja Ravi Varma
Puraskaram.
Raja Ravi Varma
with Gold Medal
15. Artist in making
With the influence of the west, at seeing the Italian
Paintings with three dimensional appearance which were
quite different from the Native Mural paintings on the walls
of the Hindu Temples and after observing the Dutch painter
Theodor Jensen’s paintings for about a month’s time at
Thiruvanathapuram, he adopted new techniques in painting
. But the art of mixing colors was kept a secret which he
learnt all by himself after continued trial and errors. His
paintings had a blend of European techniques of light and
shade and the Indian traditional contexts. Ravi Varma’s
17. multi-faced subjects running into many hundreads of
paintings include Mythology, Epics, Puranas, Sanskrit
literature, History, Personal Portraits, and Animal Life. His
subjects also included the rustic, common rural folk of
divergent backdrops.
18. Major Works
Village Belle
Lady Lost in Thought
Damayanti Talking to a Swan
The Orchestra
Arjuna and Subhadra
The heartbroken
Swarbat Player
Shakuntala
Lord Krishna as Ambassador
19. 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)
