Raja Ravi Varma (1848-1906) was among the first Indian painters to successfully adapt academic realism to the visual interpretation of Indian mythology and adopt Western painting techniques of portraiture. His genre of paintings, which eventually led to chromolithographs (oleographs), has maintained a lasting effect on the Indian sensibility, making him the best-known classical painter of modern times.
This book is an account of Ravi Varma's traditional background and environment in the context of colonial India, and the relationship of this milieu with his profession as an aristocratic itinerant painter. Many royal families of India and several rich and powerful personalities were patrons of Ravi Varma, whose portraits he painted in large numbers.
His range of Puranic and religious paintings, reflecting his deep understanding of Sanskrit and Malayalam literature, have deeply influenced the forms of gods and goddesses in 20th-century visual culture of India. Ravi Varma's fascination for feminine beauty and the ability to capture it masterfully is abundantly evident in his numerous portrayals of Shakuntala, Sita and Damayanti, and of the Indian woman. His lingering influence on the Indian mindset is also seen in the works of Indian contemporary painters and artists, who continue to be inspired by his art.
Rupika Chawla is a conservator of paintings based in Delhi. She has restored several Ravi Varma paintings at her studio in Delhi and she also gives training in conservation. Together with artist A. Ramachandran she had organized the seminal exhibition on Raja Ravi Varma in 1993 at the National Museum, New Delhi, which brought about a strong revival of the artist and his work. She has written extensively on contemporary Indian art, and is the author of Surface and Depth: Indian Artists at Work (Viking), A. Ramachandran: Art of the Muralist (Kala Yatra & Sistas) and Icons of the Raw Earth (Kala Yatra). She also maintained a column in The Indian Express from 2001 to 2004.
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