Raja Ravi Varma, honored with “Kesar-e-Hind”, was a prominent Indian painter. He was born on 29 April 1848 in Kilimanoor, a small town in Kerala.
Raja Ravi Varma: At the tender age of five, Ravi Varma started painting the walls of his house with incidents from daily life. The biggest feature of his paintings were the paintings made on Hindu epics and religious texts. A large collection of his paintings is still present in the museum of Lakshmi Vilas Mahal located in Vadodara.
Ravi Varma was born in a matriarchal family. His mother’s family followed the matrilineal system of descent and succession. When Ravi Varma was young, his uncle recognized his amazing talent for painting and took him to the then ruling king, Ayyilam Thirunal. It was Raja Ayyilam Thirunal who helped Ravi Varma to learn painting.
Controversy over making nude painting
Talking about nude painting, we remember MF Hussain. But do you know that Ravi Verma had also been in controversies due to nude paintings. In fact, there are a large number of paintings in his collection that depict a woman drenched in white. Ravi Varma’s experiment of mixing East and West was fiercely criticized by many art critics at that time. Rabindranath Tagore once said that “the proportions of women’s bodies in Ravi’s paintings are not correct.”
Ravi Varma painted nude mythological stories related to Apsaras like Urvashi and Menaka, which was strongly opposed in that era. Apart from this, Rukmini Verma, the heiress of Ravi Verma’s family, is also active in painting. Due to the making of seminude painting, there have been controversies on his pictures as well. However, she makes paintings for private collectors only.
Used to take 1800 rupees to make a painting
In 2007, an artwork by Raja Ravi Varma sold for $1.24 million. The painting depicts the Maharaja of Travancore and his brother welcoming the Governor General of Madras, Richard Temple Grenville. Grenville came to Travancore in 1880 on an official visit. Along with this, films have also been made on Raja Ravi Varma. Actor Randeep Hooda played the role of Raja Ravi Varma in the film Rangarasia.
Also, the life of Raja Ravi Varma has been shown in the Malayalam film ‘Makaramanju’. Let us tell you that in the Marathi book of Marathi Board, there is a chapter ‘Apoorva Bhaint’ in which the meeting of Raja Ravi Varma and Swami Vivekananda is depicted. It is said that Raja Ravi Varma used to charge a fee of Rs 1800 for making paintings of kings in those days, which used to be a huge amount at that time.
A form given to Hindu deities
Raja Ravi Varma was the first painter to depict Hindu deities on canvas. The images of Goddess Lakshmi, Maa Durga, and Lord Krishna, including Goddess Saraswati, that we see today in photos, posters, and calendars are mostly the work of Raja Ravi Varma.
It is said that in order to understand these gods and goddesses, he not only visited many ancient temples of India but also made a deep study of religious literature. Raja Ravi Varma brought life to many mythological stories and their characters on his canvas. Raja Ravi Varma also showed sage Vishwakarma in a painting disdaining the child. The idea to create these paintings came from the characters depicted in the Puranas and epics. All the portraits of Gods and Goddesses made by Raja Ravi Varma were made in oil colour.
This is how the title of king was received
In 1904, Ravi Verma was awarded the ‘Kesar-e-Hind Gold Medal’ by Viceroy Curzon on behalf of the British Emperor. For the first time, the title of ‘Raja’ was mentioned in front of his name in the citation for this award. At that time the popularity of Raja Ravi Varma and his paintings had increased so much that the government had to open a post office in the small town of Kilimanoor, his birthplace, as requests for his paintings started pouring in from different corners of the country.
Most of the information about Raja Ravi Varma’s life comes from The Diary of C. Raja Varma, written by his brother. Who was also the assistant and business manager of Raja Ravi Varma. At the same time, let us tell you that Reclining Nair Lady is one of his most famous paintings. He made it in 1902. He got the inspiration for this painting from the painting ‘Olympia’ by the great French painter Eduard Manet. This famous Indian painter and artist passed away on 2 October 1906.