“Raja Ravi Varma: a pioneer in modern Indian art”

Social recognition of an artist in the sphere of public acceptance- this is what the word “modern” here stands for. This kind of establishment by an artist comes as a result of his individualism, his own style and his signature. 

 And Indian art came to a new pavilion of focus with Raja Ravi Varma. In the end of nineteenth century this artist emerged out and started qualifying himself for this very distinction.  And still now his works have survived the market of demand. This clearly shows his awareness of market strategies even in the time when there was actually nothing called market for Indian artists. Indian artists were rather thought to be very provincial, cause of their confinement in their themes and techniques in their art work.

Raja Ravi varma (1848-1906), a blue blood, started learning the basics of traditional Tanjore painting from his uncle, Raja Raja Varma.  The education he received in his early childhood was mainly through the Indian classics. Later he equipped himself with the British schooling. He was an artist with extreme talent and he was the only the-then artist to get so much of appreciation not only from the Indian connoisseurs but also from the foreign. This is also true that his royal blood opened him to a broad stream of studies in Indian painting, which was very much responsible for his achievement in his later life. His acquaintance with the Maharaja of Travancore brought him opportunities to educate himself in the area of western skills and concept. He read books on the European renaissance and got attracted to the medium of oil painting. This was the time when oil painting had the patronage of the British rulers and was gaining popularity among the native kings. He was aware that the western paintings were popular because of their closeness to what they perceive. He was conscious of the advantage of realism in western art. Portraits and realistic compositions were in great demand that time. Even the court artist of Travancore, Ramaswamy Naicker commanded respect because of his proficiency in oil portraiture. Ravi varma did his first commissioned portrait in 1870, but it didn’t have the finesse which his later works had. He earned his full recognition in the area of portraiture when he painted the madras governor, duke of Buckingham. What earned him a quick popularity was his quick ability to catch the likeness in the portrait with the human sitting for him in very short time.

His works can be prominently divided into two categories – one would be the paintings of the common themes and portraits of the royal families and another would be the mythological thematic paintings

Examples of the first category is -

1.        Portrait of  a maharshtrian lady

2.        The veena player

3.        Pannalal Mehta

4.        Englishman

5.        Lady with fruit

6.        At the ball game, Etcetera

And of the later is –

1.        Nala and Damayanti

2.        Harish Chandra and Taramati

3.        Arjun and Subhadra

4.        Young Bharata and the lion cub

5.        Sakuntala sitting

6.        Sakuntala standing

7.        Sita bhuparavesam

8.        Saraswati

9.        Ravana fighting with Jatayu

 and etcetra

The next phase of his career took a lift with the Indian classics. His interpretation of the epics was different from what we saw in the pre-Ravi Varma period, they were fuller of western touches. It can be said that his paintings were translations of the Indian Sanskrit classics in the European language of style and grace. But yes, his images had no iconic representation. His power of narrating the whole story in his composition was enough for making one understand the theme. No wonder that when Monier Williams published his book, ‘abhijnana Sakuntalam’ his painting, ‘shakuntala writing love letter’ became the cover page. His realisation that the Indian myths and legends needed a new interpretation played the key role of his success in establishing his own signatory style in Indian art.  He followed the pre-Raphaelite concept and traditions of English art and thus, he was ahead of his time in the Indian scenario of art.  He continued with his thematic paintings on the epics till the end of his life.  In his secular paintings too he came up with the representation of his knowledge and liking for the Victorian style of living. The way he dressed up his female figures in long full length sarees and draped them carefully was never seen in previous Indian art. Though he was a south Indian, he was also in love with the other cultures in India. His Maharashtrian lady like appearance of Damayanti in his masterpiece, ‘hamsa- damayanti’ stands as an example in this context. His patrons too drove him to work on the epics, like what the raja of Baroda palace and Mysore palace did.

He extended his work of art to print making creating a genre which was for the first time accessible to the masses. The “saraswati” is a great example. His oleographs translated the iconographic representation of the mythical gods and goddesses to the portraits of many royal families. His dramatic depiction of mythological characters and incidents stood out at the most and influenced the later Indian cinema and calendar art. This trend of being inspired by literary works other than ‘Puranic’ themes was later taken up by the Bengal school even though they firmly kept on rejecting the realisms of Raja Ravi Varma.

        

WOMEN MOTIVES

Films move across the barriers of class, literacy, religion and language. Not only reflecting reality is their purpose but also constructing the reality. The history of Indian cinema goes as far back as 1913 when Dada Sahib Phalke, one of the pioneers of the silent feature film in Indian cinema broke ground with Rajah Harishchandra. Since then many critical issues have been raised and analysed. There have been films dealing with social, political and psychological themes. The Indian cinema encompasses the lives, aspirations, emotions, sentiments, problems and struggle of “one half of humanity” – that is the woman.

 “Men act, women appear. Men look at women; women enjoy themselves being looked at.”

 -John Berger: ways of seeing.

The above statement very clearly showcases the position of women in the society, including the main stream and parallel Indian cinema. In the ‘realm of look’, women has appeared numerous times on screen, sometimes to satisfy the need of the subject of the film or sometimes unnecessarily. But the term unnecessary can be called as very dubious. It can be variable to situations and to viewers.

Indian cinemas portray women in both the ways, i.e. bearer and maker of the meaning. Though this contradicts to Budd Boeticher’s statement that,” what counts is what the heroine provokes, or rather what she represents. She is the one, or rather the love or fear she inspires in the hero, or else the concern he feels for her, who makes him act the way he does. In her the women has no slightest importance.”  In a way it is evident that the position of women in Indian cinema has travelled a lot from the reputation of being the show piece to main lead. In lot of movies, women specially constituted the role as spectacle. The subject of look is especially evident from the increasing numbers of item numbers in the Indian parlance. Sometimes the one item song ends up making a film hit, such as “chamma chamma” did for the film “china gate”. What the common traits of all the item numbers are the cinematic elements of lighting and shot taking , i.e., the way the body is arranged with respect to the camera and hence to the eye of the audience. All these create some movements in the body, which all add up in turning the woman into a subject of glare. The gaze gets invited to certain parts of the body, which are selectively considered sexual. The costumes are often dazzling with sequins or a metallic finish, brightly coloured and revealingly cut. In this context, a quote from Laura Mulvey’s seminal article, “visual pleasure and narrative cinema” could be mentioned, “in their traditional exhibitionist role, women are simultaneously looked at and displayed with their appearance coded for strong visual and erotic impact, so that they can be said to connote to be looked-at-ness”. But this does not suggest that it is the only spectral position or way of presentation of woman. Because it cannot be denied that spectral pleasure may even proceed from viewing of the female figure as plenitude or opposite sex identification. After all we are all multiply gendered and according to psychoanalysis essentially bisexual. Thus this pleasure might be coming from the ability of cinema to satisfy the need to overcome sexual differences, the wish to be both the sexes temporarily through the mobility of multiple ,fluid identifications.  

Well this goes one category of the role of women in Indian cinema, the other category is different. In films like “Bandini”,” Damini”, the script talked about the stage from the victimhood to potential threat, the film “Mirch Masala” showing the victory of the simple unarmed women over the nuisances of a man by the help of her simplest harming ideas. Another film “zubeida” was seen showing its spatial contours. Whereas, "Astitva",kept on raising questions on the very idea of existence. The real meaning of the film is contained not in the declaration of its intent but in the totality of the experience which it provides.  Sensitive national issues like Muslim women’s identity are also worked on. “pakeezah” , “nikah”, “bazaar” and “umrao jaan” can be cited as examples. In these films we notice that the female protagonists enjoy a key postion, as far as their roles are concerned, they are the central figures around whom the story resolves but what needs to be looked at is their identity as women. Such portrayal of women in the Indian cinema drives us more towards the universal reality. 

    So far the existence of a woman in the society, yet “munni” couldn’t have been herself if it wasn’t for her.

cricket is religion !

Tomorrow is my final exam, and i m sitting here in front of the desktop and filling in this blank space with whatever I have experienced today. Finally India brought the world cup ! The  whole day was full of new experiences and I could extend my perception of a nation. no matter what , this is true that our country is full of passion and is compassionate to each other . We have heard a lot of inter racial riots, commune unevenness , but all these have somewhere come to a temporary pause today ! Neighbours whom i always see fighting with each other , today forgot all their grievances and started chatting each other and even had their lunch together while they were  worried about the cricket match .
Naseef who was bitterly insulted by Somnath in the past, was  sitting next to him  only and watching the match . the greedy shop keeper uncle , who never gave us any discount on the art materials, we brought from him today decorated the whole market compound with paper Indian flags and also kept a huge TV for the customers and other people who cant afford to see the match .
girls in the hostel were excited and didn't even bother about the cooking line . they were liberal enough today and overlooked every mistake done by themselves only .
I didn't go and watch the match till the 45th over of the second innings, but had to go cause I could not resist my curiosity.the boys hostel opposite to our hostel was bursting out with screams . finally I wore my coat , went downstairs . to my surprise there was not a single space inside the common room. I went at the last row and stood there for a while . India required 30 to win from 36 balls ! I concentrated in the match .. suddenly to my shock which i felt afterwards , I found myself screaming with the lot when Yuvraj hit  a four . me, who just had  a fight with my boy friend and was very sad about it as well as tensed about the exam and was low to the maximum was taking part in the so called "useless bunch of people " in order to express their excitement through screaming, shouting INDIA INDIA ! ha ha .. two girls were even praying to god for a sixer and finally in the last ball may be it was a sixer or a four (which i could not find out, cause all the girls sitting in the front rows stood up and hid the TV with their bodies) . WE WON! that was all came out of my mouth in a meek voice and a smile . the only thing which came to my mind was "seriously in India cricket is a religion", I wish there would be a match like this every day .

frog of the well.

Hmmn, yeah , its me sitting in front of my laptop , trying to think whats going inside me , life has never been so easy for me . May be its a relative matter , but yes it had been full of puzzled up situations. I talk to myself whenever I get time , I ask myself where am i going toward ? This makes me wonder , how many people in this world are actually thinking and asking the same question to themselves, right now at this dead of night ! I guess lots .
I have come across junctions where i get the striking blow of my multiple thought process . its like being hit continuously . The invisible force does not even seem to stop as if it never gets tired . My brain needs to take rest but it never does . Why do we think so much ? Is it only me ? Or there are thousands of people like me wandering in search of  answer to this same question. Whatever i am thinking , is it righteous to even think like that ? Or it is just the devil in my brain plotting these jumbled up pieces to shake my brain, cause i always keep my brain idle (according to the worldly definitions). Or am i just a well's frog trying to think that the world around me is the real world ! 

is this the definition of religion ?

as we all have seen, in history, religion has been used as a factor of convenience by the ruling class or by any fraction of the society which suddenly wants a mass backing for their cause. religion comes forward  as a back up cause in the name of religion  one can get the maximum number of people on your side .
it is a fact that almost lot of the great religions came into being in the very disturbed periods of the history. and each and every religion ..
to be contd.