Ravi Varma: From canvas through calendar to temples March 16, 2016, Nandita Sengupta | TOI

Ravi Varma: From canvas through calendar to temples

March 16, 2016,  Nandita Sengupta  | TOI

Painter was a radical who gave three-dimensional form to divinity; today that radical iconography is being used in temples.

Next time you visit your neighbourhood temple, take a good look at some of the sculptures on display on the colourful gopuram towers. If you’re interested in India’s artistic heritage, you’ll see the signature of one of its most well-known painters. The artist is Raja Ravi Varma, the man who radically transformed religious iconography with his very human depiction of divinity a century and a half ago. 

Varma did to temple iconography what Renaissance artists did to Christian themes in Europe three centuries before him -give divinity a human face and form. “Pan-India representation of divinity as it existed before Ravi Varma was either two-dimensional or tantric (comprising linear lines). All religious iconography from Tanjore and Mysore school to Pahari miniatures to Tibetan Tankhas were either tantric or two dimensional,”  says Ganesh V Shivaswamy of the Raja Ravi Varma Heritage Foundation.

Part of the reason for the humanising effect is Varma’s choice of models. Many of his famous paintings were modelled on his daughter Mahaprabha who is the face of Saraswati, Lakshmi and Damayanti. But Varma also used people around him to depict divine or mythological characters on canvas. He used the physicality of one of the palace workers to bring Ravana to life while Rama was based on a young relative of his. And although his depiction of mythology is stylized -just as it was in the Renaissance for example -his deities are also surprisingly modern.

“His Lakshmi does not wear string upon string of necklace -she looks very traditional but wears elegant jewellery that would not be out of place in a sophisticated contemporary setting,“ says Shivaswamy . “That’s how modern he made this theme.“ Ironically , his fame and pan-India appeal has turned Raja Ravi Varma’s artistic style into a generic form. “ A lot of the stucco work on contemporary temple gopurams is based on or inspired by Raja Ravi Varma,“ says Shivaswamy. Madurai’s Azhagar Koil, for instance, depicts the birth of Shakuntala on its gopuram tower in a manner that’s obviously inspired by Varma’s famous original. “A facade of the Padmanabhaswamy Temple was inspired or rather copied from Raja Ravi Varma’s ‘Vishnu Garuda Vahan’. And the stucco work on the outer parapets of the Nanjangud temple near Mysore draws its inspiration from ‘Shankar’, ” he added.

While many of these temples are very old, parts of the older structure have now been rebuilt. For instance, the Azhagar Koil gopuram is much more recent than the original temple. Ditto for the archway in the Padmanabhaswamy Temple. “Much of this more recent work is identical to Ravi Varma lithographs,” said Shivaswamy.

The adoption of Varma by temple sculptors is understandable given how widespread and entrenched his appeal is in India. Even those who don’t understand very much of art recognize his paintings and his versions of popular deities like Lakshmi and Saraswati now grace puja rooms and calendars . Given the work done by a whole generation of prolific artists like M V Dhurandhar, M A Joshi and SM Pandit, among others, all of whom emulated him and perpetuated his style -Raja Ravi Varma’s version is now the accepted look of Hindu divinity . From being a radical, the artist has come full circle.