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Colours of royalty
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An exhibition of Raja Ravi Varma’s oleographs was a fitting tribute to the painter-king in his death centenary year
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HEARTENING FAMILIARITY People thronged to see the oleographs
If anybody wants to single out one Indian artist who dramatically changed the way Indians of all classes and castes perceived their past, their legends and mythology it would be that much celebrated self-taught painter from Kerala, Raja Ravi Varma.
He achieved recognition for his depiction of scenes from the Mahabharata and Ramayana and his works adorn palaces, aristocratic homes and museum walls in India and across the globe even today.
He was the singular Indian artist in the realistic school. It was an irony that he was one of the most eclipsed and underrated artists for 90 years. With his death centenary is being observed this year, art collectors are frantic to acquire his oleographs.
Omprakash, a collector of oleograph prints from Baroda, conducted an exhibition of over 50 oleograph prints of Ravi Varma’s paintings. It was organised by Mysore’s Rangayana at their Lankesh Gallery, as part of the Dasara celebrations. The major attraction for both commoners and art lovers was that these were pints from the artist’s Picture Depot.
Ravi Varma, was born to Umamba Thampuratti and Neelakandan Bhattadaripad in the royal palace of Kilimanoor. He showed talent at a young age, attracting the patronage of Ayilyam Thirunal Maharaja of Travancore when he was 14 years of age. He was taught by the palace painter Ramaswamy Naidu, and later oil painting by British painter Theodor Jenson. The power and forceful expression of European painting fascinated Ravi Varma, which he found to be in striking contrast to stylised Indian art work.
His paintings are considered to be among the best examples of a fusion of Indian traditions with the techniques of European academic art. He is most remembered for his paintings of beautiful sari-clad women, who were shapely and graceful. He often modelled Hindu goddesses on south Indian women, whom he considered beautiful. His paintings depicting the story of Dushyanta and Shakuntala, Nala-Damayanti, and from the Mahabharata are outstanding. His representation of mythological characters has become a part of the Indian imagination of epics.
His exposure in the west came when he won the first prize at Vienna Art Exhibtion in 1873. After a successful career as a painter, Raja Ravi Varma died in 1906 at the age of 58. Ravi Varma was famous even during his lifetime and was unable to comply with all his commissions. Dewan Madhav Rao suggested him to establish a lithographic press. In 1984, keen to make his works more widely available, Ravi Varma established an oleograph press called “The Ravi Varma Picture Depot” and began publishing prints. The masses loved his pictures, especially for his gods and goddesses.
They were widely copied and re-copied by commercial artists and even today hundreds of these imitations hang in homes, temples and shops. Ravi Varma’s paintings marked an important milestone in the history of printing in India. Transcending the line of art as aesthetics, it became social, religious, and commercial.
Omprakash, who has converted his office in Baroda into the “Baroda Art Gallery”, houses in it a permanent exhibition of his oleograph collection. He started his collection after he acquired one antique German print of “Krishna Leela”.
He started looking around for similar old prints and oleographs in and around Baroda, Surat and Ahmedabad and could collect a sizeable number .
It was interesting to see people who had come from the villages also identify some of the oleographs with the framed photos on their walls back home, feeling proud of possessing an art piece.
MURALIDHARA KHAJANE
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Friday Review
Bangalore
Chennai and Tamil Nadu
Delhi
Hyderabad
Thiruvananthapuram
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