Painter raja ravi varma biography books
Raja Ravi Varma, a king, a painter, and usually called a Prince among the painters and a Painter among the kings. All I knew about him before I read this book was his distinct painting style and the fact that he came from a royal family of Kerala. I had seen a few of his originals in the National Gallery of Modern Art in New Delhi. I did read somewhere that he traveled around the country painting the royal portraits. Everything else was new to me.
What I gathered from this intensely written fictionalized biography is a lot about Indian royalty under British rule. The role that kings as patrons played to nurture art and artists. Role their families’ played and the suffering they go through to let the artist flourish. And the intense relationship that an artist has with his art and the muses thereof.
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In the beginning, it was amusing to read about the matriarchal societies where the groom moves to the bride&#;s family. Moreover, he is pretty much expected to do nothing but live there. Raja Ravi Varma too got married into a royal family but was not happy living with his wife’s family. The fact that his wife did not appreciate his passion for painting must have played its own role. It was his Mama, his mother’s brother who spotted his talent first when he saw him painting on the walls of the Palace they lived in. He took young Ravi to Maharaja of Travancore who readily took Ravi under his wings. He let him observe European painters in his court and he asked his royal painter to teach him who was quite reluctant to do so.
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Once he picked up the art of mixing colors, the king ensured that his work was showcased in exhibitions in Madras. And he went there to interact with other painters. Look at the patronage, not just funding his life, but guiding him with opportunities and introducing him to the world outside the sma It was in August that Ganesh Shivaswamy commenced writing a book on the legacy of the Ravi Varma Press and the first fact finding trip was in December to Kilimanoor, the birth place of the celebrated artist. Wondering if this would be a worthy project, Ganesh, accompanied by Rama Varma Thampuran of the Kilimanoor Palace walked towards a temple dedicated to Sastha. The temple, with a unique Ayyapan in a standing posture has the horse as his vahan. The horse is also the insignia of the Kilimanoor Palace as designed by Ravi Varma himself. As they approached the temple, a beam of sunlight peered through the gateway as if to welcome them. Believing this to be an auspicious sign, the project began. Was there anything new to be stated? Ravi Varma had extensively been written about, with the earliest literature in this field going back to an undated anonymously written biography in Malayalam dating to c Many students, aficionados, scholars and academicians had documented various aspects of his life. Several visits were made to the Kilimanoor Palace and Ravi Varma’s reference books were diligently scanned. The revelation came when a wooden box was discovered &#; containing the reference materials relied on by the artist. Unattended to for decades, it contained a treasure of photographs, books and negatives which were once handled by Ravi Varma himself. Having finally arrived at the source of the new narrative, it was followed by a race to access images from museum displays and storerooms, governmental, institutional and personal archives, personal collections, etc. Mining these and conversations with a range of people, the book series took shape. A lawyer by profession, he started collecting the chromolithographs from the Ravi Varma Press at the age of thirteen. Now, it is considered one of the most comprehensive collections of prints from the Press. His extensive research on the legacy of the artist and the Press find their way into the six volume s Indian painter from Kerala (–) Raja Ravi Varma (Malayalam:[ɾaːdʒaːɾɐʋiʋɐrm(ː)ɐ]) (29 April – 2 October ) was an Indian painter and artist. His works are one of the best examples of the fusion of European academic art with a purely Indian sensibility and iconography. Especially, he was notable for making affordable lithographs of his paintings available to the public, which greatly enhanced his reach and influence as a painter and public figure. His lithographs increased the involvement of common people with fine arts and defined artistic tastes among the common people. Furthermore, his religious depictions of Hindu deities and works from Indian epic poetry and Puranas have received profound acclaim. He was part of the royal family of erstwhile Parappanad, Malappuram district. Raja Ravi Varma was closely related to the royal family of Travancore of present-day Kerala state in India. Later in his life, two of his granddaughters were adopted into the royal family, and their descendants comprise the present royal family of Travancore, including the latest three Maharajas (Balarama Varma III, Marthanda Varma III and Rama Varma VII). Raja Ravi Varma was born M. R. Ry. Ravi Varma, Koil Thampuran of Kilimanoor at Kilimanoor palace in the erstwhile princely state of Travancore (present-day Kerala) into an aristocratic family that for over years produced consorts for the princesses of the matrilineal Travancore royal family. The title Raja was conferred as a personal title by the Viceroy and Governor-General of India Lord Curzon. Ravi Varma was the son of Ezhumavil Neelakanthan Bhattatiripad and Uma Ambabayi Thampurratti. His mother Uma Ambabayi Thampuratty belonged to the baronial family which ruled the Kilimanoor feudal estate within the kingdom of Travancore. She was a poet and writer of some talent, and her work Parvati Swayamvaram was published by
राजा रविवर्मा [Raja Ravi Varma]
The book covers his early life, training, relationship with the royal family of Travancore, his unsuccessful marriage, his involvement with other women, his fondness for his own people, his contacts with well known personalities, and the law suit he faced over showing goddesses semi-clad. The novel portrays effectively his early struggle, later success, his mode of working which included long preparation, his philosophy behind his work. A salient feature of the work is the light it throws on the life in a matriarchal family. He received several medals or rewards from Vienna, Chicago and Madras. His painting were very famous. He was notable for making affordable lithographs of his paintings available to the public, which greatly enhanced his reach and influence as a painter and public figure. Indeed, his lithographs increased the involvement of common people with fine arts and defined artistic tastes among common people for several decades. In particular, his depictions of Hindu deities and episodes from the epics and Puranas have received profound acceptance from the public and are found, often as objects of worship, across the length and breadth of India
Overall it was a good read. I enjoyed it.Raja Ravi Varma
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