Writing biographies of historical personalities can be a tricky task. Doubly so, if the person in question is someone as enigmatic, colourful and as shrouded in myths as Raja Ravi Varma. And the task becomes especially tougher if it were the painter himself who carefully concocted many of those myths that surround him.
Ravi Varma does not need an introduction, at least for an Indian audience. And the imageries he created more than 100 years ago have become household properties, populating every other drawing-room wall, multitudes of puja rooms as well as the packets and labels of an endless array of products. His name contains the tag of many firsts — India’s first celebrity painter, the first Indian artist to hold a public exhibition of his works and the first artist-entrepreneur of India who dared to take his own images to the public in multitudes, through oleographic prints.
However, even though more than one century has passed since his death in 1906, the life of the ‘Painter Prince’ has remained more or less mythical, with hardly any factual support about the biographical
nuances of his life and work. Only a handful of volumes of his biography have ever been published even in his native Kerala, there haven’t also been many academic studies on him. Though a nation-wide
interest in the contributions made by Ravi Varma towards the Indian art scenario had been generated subsequent to the large exhibition of his works in Delhi curated by the renowned A Ramachandran and art critic/conservator Rupika Chawla in 1993, it has not yet resulted in the creation of any substantial study material.
Of course, the colourful life of the artist that had already given rise to many yarns in the cities of British India which he used to frequent, has started to generate some equally colourful fictionalised works, like Marathi writer Ranjit Desai’s novel or Ketan Mehta’s film Rang Rasiya.But none of this could fulfill the cravings for factual history that art enthusiasts nurture.
It is into this virtual vacuum that the journalist and art writer Deepanjana Pal steps in boldly, and comes out with her work, The Painter: A Life of Ravi Varma. Described by the author as an ‘entirely non-fiction work,’ that uses ‘fiction and imagination in parts,’ the book tells the story of the painter prince, firmly based in the times in which he lived. It is a biography that keeps in line with history, with the times in which and according to the ethos of which, the life and works of the protagonist happened.
Published by Random House India, and packed into over 280 pages, The Painter presents a vivid portrait of the life and times of Ravi Varma, the prince of Kilimanoor Kovilakam, who carved out a different way of life for himself, with the ultimate determination. The most remarkable aspect of this book is the author’s attempt to make it as historical as possible. She has traversed not only the reference volumes available on and off-line, but also along the history of the actual locales of the artist’s life.
Written in a clearly non-fictional language, the book strips away all the unnecessary aura of romance surrounding the artist, yet in the end the figure of Ravi Varma, the artist emerges as that of a great personality, who was full of mysteries, enigmas and paradoxes.
Deepanjana deserves applause also for the efforts she has taken to understand the political and social situations of the 19th-century Kerala, especially that of Travancore, the princely state to which Ravi Varma’s own family were subordinates. The intricate weavings of the political situations of the Kerala of colonial times, especially in the background of the matrilineal succession practiced by the ruling communities, often proves a tough nut even for present-day Keralites, leave aside the unsuspecting souls from other states.
Apart from historical documents, the writer has drawn largely upon the interviews with the members of the royal family of Travancore, of Kilimanoor and Mavelikkara Kovilakams and to numerous people who had at least second-hand information regarding Ravi Varma’s personal life. ‘Vignettes and gossip that can not be verified’ are included in the narrative, with the imagined portions given in italics, to differentiate from documented information.
She has also meticulously traced Ravi Varma’s travels outside Kerala, his encounters with the rulers and royal courts of the British India, his venturing into printing, with the establishment of the Ravi Varma Fine Art Lithographic Press and many other aspects, with fine detailing.
However, there’s one major glitch: the word Malayali has been used to refer to the language Malayalam. And oddly enough, the book does not contain any reproductions of the famous Ravi Varma paintings, except for the cover pages. This work, with immense quantity of information, would only have gained from including them.
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