Raja Ravi Verma
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A profile
The Times of India, March 16, 2016
Nandita Sengupta
Ravi Varma: From canvas through calendar to temples
Painter was a radical who gave three-dimensional form to divinity; today that radical iconography is being used in temples. Next time you visit your neighbourhood temple, take a good look at some of the sculptures on display on the colourful gopuram towers. If you’re interested in India’s artistic heritage, you’ll see the signature of one of its most well-known painters. The artist is Raja Ravi Varma, the man who radically transformed religious iconography with his very human depiction of divinity a century and a half ago.
Varma did to temple iconography what Renaissance artists did to Christian themes in Europe three centuries before him -give divinity a human face and form. “Pan-India representation of divinity as it existed before Ravi Varma was either two-dimensional or tantric (comprising linear lines). All religious iconography from Tanjore and Mysore school to Pahari miniatures to Tibetan Tankhas were either tantric or two dimensional,” says Ganesh V Shivaswamy of the Raja Ravi Varma Heritage Foundation.
Part of the reason for the humanising effect is Varma’s choice of models. Many of his famous paintings were modelled on his daughter Mahaprabha who is the face of Saraswati, Lakshmi and Damayanti. But Varma also used people around him to depict divine or mythological characters on canvas. He used the physicality of one of the palace workers to bring Ravana to life while Rama was based on a young relative of his. And although his depiction of mythology is stylized -just as it was in the Renaissance for example -his deities are also surprisingly modern.
“His Lakshmi does not wear string upon string of necklace -she looks very traditional but wears elegant jewellery that would not be out of place in a sophisticated contemporary setting,“ says Shivaswamy . “That’s how modern he made this theme.“ Ironically , his fame and pan-India appeal has turned Raja Ravi Varma’s artistic style into a generic form. “ A lot of the stucco work on contemporary temple gopurams is based on or inspired by Raja Ravi Varma,“ says Shivaswamy. Madurai’s Azhagar Koil, for instance, depicts the birth of Shakuntala on its gopuram tower in a manner that’s obviously inspired by Varma’s famous original. “A facade of the Padmanabhaswamy Temple was inspired or rather copied from Raja Ravi Varma’s ‘Vishnu Garuda Vahan’. And the stucco work on the outer parapets of the Nanjangud temple near Mysore draws its inspiration from ‘Shankar’, ” he added.
While many of these temples are very old, parts of the older structure have now been rebuilt. For instance, the Azhagar Koil gopuram is much more recent than the original temple. Ditto for the archway in the Padmanabhaswamy Temple. “Much of this more recent work is identical to Ravi Varma lithographs,” said Shivaswamy.
The adoption of Varma by temple sculptors is understandable given how widespread and entrenched his appeal is in India. Even those who don’t understand very much of art recognize his paintings and his versions of popular deities like Lakshmi and Saraswati now grace puja rooms and calendars . Given the work done by a whole generation of prolific artists like M V Dhurandhar, M A Joshi and SM Pandit, among others, all of whom emulated him and perpetuated his style -Raja Ravi Varma’s version is now the accepted look of Hindu divinity . From being a radical, the artist has come full circle.
Prices fetched by his paintings
2020: Vishwamitra fetches $8.6 lakh
Tushar Tere, Ravi Varma’s Vishwamitra painting fetches $8.6 lakh, March 19, 2020: The Times of India
VADODARA: An artwork in oil depicting Sage Vishwamitra deep in meditation has once again pushed the brilliance of legendary artist Raja Ravi Varma into the international art domain after Sotheby’s auctioned the painting for a record price of $8.6 lakh.
Sotheby’s had opened online bidding last month for an estimated price between $7 lakh and $ 9 lakh for this untitled painting ‘Swami Vishwamitra in Meditation’ that depicts the firebrand sage surrounded by a halo of rare calm composure. The bid closed two days ago after an unknown bidder bought the rare painting, originally part of a private collection of Fritz Schleicher, a German printer who had worked with Varma and later acquired by a private collector in Denmark.
This is the second-highest price that Varma’s paintings have fetched at Sotheby’s. In 2017, ‘Damayanti’, another masterpiece by Varma, the father of modern Indian art, was sold for $16.92 lakh.
Varma’s works draw int’l interest
The price that the Vishwamitra painting has fetched exemplifies the international recognition and interest that Raja Ravi Varma’s works enjoy,” said Sachin Kaluskar, an art connoisseur who has a rich collection of Varma’s oleographs. Describing Varma’s works, Sotheby’s says that in 1894, after producing a large number of oil paintings, Varma founded India’s first oleography press in Lonavala (now in Maharashtra). ‘To help reproduce his paintings, Varma employed Fritz Schleicher from Berlin, who was highly qualified in colour lithographic printing as the manager of workshop.
Varma eventually sold the Press to Schleicher in 1903, at which stage the firm was renamed The Ravi Varma Fine Art Lithographic Works, Sotheby’s states.
Not only Ravi Varma, the city also shares its history with Vishwamitra who gives his name to the river that flows through the heart of the city today.
