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Book Review
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A Journey through Time
Renu Ramanath reviews the Mumbai-based art writer Deepanjana Pal’s book, ‘The Painter: A Life of Ravi Varma,’ that presents a detailed picture of the life and times of the 19th century painter.
A demure beauty casts a sedate gaze at the reader from the front cover. Another lissome lady sways on a swing on the back cover, her half-closed eyes fixed in some distant dream, the thin fabric of the sari hardly covering her graceful figure.
These are the only pictures that appear in the book, ‘The Painter: A Life of Ravi Varma,’ a biography of the legendary artist written by the Mumbai-based art writer Deepanjana Pal. One more image is there – a map of India from 1872, showing the Princely States and Presidencies of British India.
The front cover is “from a print copying Ravi Varma’s painting, ‘At the Bath,’ by an unknown artist,” the readers are informed. And the back cover is Ravi Varma’s ‘Mohini,’ contributed by Baroda Art Gallery. It is quite interesting that the book contains no other images or reproductions of Ravi Varma’s celebrated paintings. Not even a photograph of the painter himself !
However, the absence of Ravi Varma paintings is adequately compensated by the colourful and almost complete portrait of Ravi Varma, the man and artist, of his life and the times in which he lived, that Pal paints through this book. That is a portrait of Ravi Varma which has not seen light before.
As Pal herself has pointed out in an interview, “Ravi Varma is a sketchy figure, yet he’s famous.”(1) She points out how people will nod knowingly if you mention the name, ‘Raja Ravi Varma,’ yet know hardly anything about him other than something like ‘calendar art.’
She had wanted to “write a book that would remember Ravi Varma the way people who knew him personally did.” (2)
Definitely, this is not an academic work that analyses the art of Ravi Varma, but Pal places Ravi Varma in the correct historic context that he had lived in. For making this possible, she has drawn an extensive and exhaustive picture of the British India, the history of its Princely States and the general political scenario of the late 19th century, when Ravi Varma started his career. Quite interestingly, she has even understood well the nuances of the matrilineal society and the norms of inheritance under the matrilineal system that was followed among the Kshathriya families of Kerala in those days. A close knowledge of system is mandatory for understanding the life of Ravi Varma whose family, the Kilimanoor Kovilakam, had close relationships with the Royal Family of Travancore, the circumstances that led to his earlier patronage by the Maharaja of Travancore and the fall from royal grace that later led Ravi Varma to set out for other Princely States like Baroda or Mysore.
In fact, it his expeditions outside Kerala that had led to the evolution of Ravi Varma into the stature of the first celebrity artist of India. It was the royal commissions from the rich courts of Baroda and Mysore that made possible the exquisite works that shot up his fame.
Pal argues how Ravi Varma was had strived throughout his whole life to gain a respectable position for art in a society which had given the artist only the status of an ordinary artisan, of someone who worked with his hands to make a living. She points out how the very act of Ravi Varma deciding to be a professional artist, one who accepted monetary remuneration for his work, was a revolutionary act in those days, when members of noble families like Ravi Varma’s were not supposed to work for a living. Though they could dabble with the arts or literature, considered noble pastimes, they were not expected to make a living out of that.
Making use of historical facts, hearsay and her imagination, Pal reconstructs the tumultuous state of mind that Ravi Varma might have experienced while taking the important decision to turn himself into a professional artist, an uncommon decision, especially for a member of his social class, in those days. She makes it a point that Ravi Varma chose to became an artist just out of his passion for art. And, of course, the craving for fame must also have spurred him once success started to be bestowed upon him.
Pal draws a fine portrait of the painter who was “a curious mix of modernity and conservatism.’ Someone who never even dreams of going abroad for the fear of losing his caste, but would pour over the European art magazines and post cards of nude models. He loved partying though he never drank a drop of wine. He also never touched money with his hands, but took care to establish himself as the most expensive portrait artist of his times.
She has taken meticulous effort to present a detailed history of almost every character who had a role to play in the life of Ravi Varma – T.Madhava Rao, the Dewan of Travancore, Pudukottai and then, Baroda who was Ravi Varma’s most important mentor, Nagarcoil Ammachi, the consort of the Maharaja Ayilyam Thirunal who was one of his earliest patrons, Sayajirao Gaekwad, the Maharaja of Baroda and many others.
However, the most interesting aspect of the book is the tracing of the history of the famed Ravi Varma Press, the lithographic press that Ravi Varma set up at Kalbadevi, in southern Bombay, from which were produced the oleographs that were to transform the entire visual imagery of the whole country. Starting with a detailed history of how the technique of lithographic printing was discovered in Europe, she goes on to give a thorough account of how Ravi Varma went about the business. A lot of interesting details are given about the two Germans, Fritz Schleicher and P.Gerhardt whom Ravi Varma had hired for running the press, including how Schleicher would later buy the press from Ravi Varma, settling down near Lonavla and how the press would, later, churn out the icons and images that were to stay in public memory till today. It is quite a fascinating story !
Ravi Varma was an artist who consciously built his public image, may be even the first artist to take such carefully planned career decisions. Even the ‘Raja’ in his name was a later add-on, which he must have endorsed silently so as to be known as a “prince’ from Kerala in the north Indian circles of royalty.
The process of writing this book must have surely been a journey of discovery for the writer as well. It must have thrown open the doors to an ancient past with an ethos quite different from out present times. It is a veritable effort, may be even the first of its nature, to bring to life the sketchy past that surrounded the life of India’s most celebrated, most popular and the most disdained painter. It is a journey through time, in search of an artist.
End Notes
(Renu Ramanath is Kochi-based writer and columnist. She has been a full-time journalist since 1994, having worked with leading Indian newspapers including The Hindu and Mathrubhumi. Email: renuramanath@hotmail.com )
