Raja Ravi Verma.....a genius from whose work emnated the fragrance of its characters!!!

The painting, ‘ Lady with the lamp’ is one that has been seen & reproduced innumerable times. It can be found in many homes, places & stores all over India & the haunting nature of the painting brings into sharp focus the mastery & genius of the painter, Raja Ravi Verma who is an inspiration for a whole generation of Indian artists.

It feels proud to note that the artist, Ravi Verma (1848 – 1906) was born in our very own Kerala, India in a family of scholars & poets. His talent was noticed at a very young age by his uncle who initiated him into the arts. He was trained at the Travancore palace in water colours & then later through trial & error learned the technique of oil painting which was very new in those days. Since he used indigenous paints made of flowers, leaves etc initially which was difficult, he found the medium of oils to be more flexible, thus using this in portraiture painting.

Starting with the Tanjore style of painting, he managed to blend it with the European realism, thus creating portraits that managed to add an elegance to the personality of the subject giving them an ethereal quality. Having won the first prize at the Madras Painting exhibition in 1873, he became a world famous Indian painter after winning the Vienna exhibition in 1873. Though folk art forms were used as illustrations for religious narratives previously, he was the first one to give a human face to Hindu Gods & Goddess’s by his depiction of mythological characters through his paintings which continues in books & calendars even to this day.

Another first to his credit, was the production of oleographic prints which helped in mass reproduction of his paintings done by the famous Dadasaheb Phalke of Indian Films.

Although he lived for a short while, his extensive body of work will be a benchmark for generations to come & be recognized for its haunting quality & ability to capture the underlying emotions of his subjects!!!

Mahishasura........an artwork that exemplifies India!!!

One of India's most famous paintings & which has created records not as much for the acclaimed work than for its sale, is the painting 'Mahishasura' by the artist Tyeb Mehta (25/7/'25 - 2/7/'09)

According to Hindu mythology, Mahishasura was a demon who was granted the power of invincibility by God Brahma but then became so powerful that he had to be killed by the Goddess Durga.

Tyeb Mehta, a contemporary of Artist M.F.Hussain depicted this in his own way & this is not surprising, considering that he comes from a generation of artists, who were influenced by European masters but sought to forge their own path & use Indian themes to interpret their work.

The Mahishasura, done in 1996 is considered to be his most famous work done in karmic origami & depicts Goddess Durga slaying the demon Mahishasura. In this painting, the artist depicts Mahishasura as a sympathetic figure embracing the Goddess, thus showing the Goddess' mercy & the demon's transformation once he's united with the divine.

The technique used was very different from the artist's general style & involved a thick oblique line running through the painting often over the figures themselves. This line allowed a single figure to be expressed in different forms on each side, thus giving rise to an agnostic view of a subject. In the painting, the man & the bull were depicted as 2 halves of a single whole thus though the theme is violent, we also find underlined the dichotomies manifested in man's existence, the good & the bad, the divine & mortal, the man & the beast. In Mehta's view this disparity existed side by side & both the figures involved are fully aware that one of them will be vanquished.

The painting when done, did generate its share of controversy but given the artists penchant for mythological themes, it was widely accepted & appreciated. It was evantually sold at a Christie's auction in New York, 2005 for a price of $1.5 million, the first time that a contemporary Indian artwork had fetched that kind of amount! Though this fact alone might divert from its brilliance, the artist has managed to portray the work as a brilliant metaphor showing the spiritual transformation that takes place as a result of union between a mortal & the divine!!

The Scream.....an engaging & evocative piece of art!!!!

How many of us have seen this amazing work &  not been touched by it.....well, I for one have not been able to put it away from my mind & I actually happened to see this the first time in a television commercial!!!!

The Scream- A painting by Norwegian artist Edward Munch was based on the expressionist style of painting & was regarded as the most famous of his work. We do often see how an artist's name sells his work but in this case, the artist's work has made him famous & identifiable. 'The scream' had so engulfed the artist's work he actually had to make several copies of this work in different media inorder to deconstruct it.

The painting depicts an agonised figure wailing against a blood red sky. The landscape is from Oslofjord, Norway. Concerning the image, Munch wrote: "I was walking along a path with two friends - the sun was setting - suddenly the sky turned blood red - I paused, feeling exhausted, and leaned on the fence - there was blood and tongues of fire above the blue-black fjord and the city - my friends walked on, and I stood there trembling with anxiety - and I sensed an infinite scream passing through nature." 

The reason this painting has attained a cult status could be that people have identified & empathised with the emotions in the painting, that being of raw pain & agony.

The painting has also been used in many movies, commercials, cartoons like the 'Simpsons' & has also been the focus of repeated thefts due to the public's fascination with it.