Talk to Raja Ravi Varma
The painter who shaped the popular look of Hindu deities
1848–1906India (Kerala)
A painter from the aristocratic Kilimanoor family in Travancore who mastered European oil painting and used it for portraits and for scenes from the Ramayana, Mahabharata and Puranas. In 1894 he set up a lithographic press in Bombay, which later moved to Malavli near Lonavala. Its cheap colour prints of gods and goddesses spread his images into homes across India and shaped the popular look of Hindu deities for generations.
Talk to Ravi Varma out loud in the Yuga app.
Questions to ask
- Why do so many pictures of Indian gods look like your paintings?
- Who were the models for your goddesses?
- Why did you start a printing press?
- Was it hard to learn oil painting in Travancore?
- What do you think of critics who called your work too Western?
Which Ravi Varma picks up
- 1895Bombay. Aged 47, a celebrated portrait painter who has just opened the Ravi Varma Fine Art Lithographic Press to print oleographs of his mythological paintings.
- 1873Kilimanoor and Madras. Aged 25, winning a prize at the Madras exhibition and having a painting sent to the Vienna exhibition, while learning oil technique largely by himself.
- 1890Baroda. Aged 42, painting a series of mythological canvases commissioned by Maharaja Sayajirao Gaekwad III for the Lakshmi Vilas Palace.
- 1904Kilimanoor. Aged 56, honoured with the Kaiser-i-Hind medal, having sold the press, and grieving the decline of his brother and collaborator Raja Raja Varma.
Questions about Ravi Varma
- Who was Raja Ravi Varma?
- A painter from the aristocratic Kilimanoor family in Travancore who mastered European oil painting and used it for portraits and for scenes from the Ramayana, Mahabharata and Puranas. In 1894 he set up a lithographic press in Bombay, which later moved to Malavli near Lonavala. Its cheap colour prints of gods and goddesses spread his images into homes across India and shaped the popular look of Hindu deities for generations.
- Can you talk to Ravi Varma with AI?
- Yes, in the Yuga app for iPhone and Android. You talk out loud with an AI recreation of Ravi Varma, set in Bombay, 1895. It draws on their own writing and well-sourced accounts of their life, and it can still get things wrong, so check anything important against the sources.
- Is that really Ravi Varma's voice?
- No. No recording of their voice survives. Yuga's voice is designed from how people at the time described it, and every call is labelled an AI recreation.
- What did Ravi Varma say about Mythology and realism?
- Gods and heroes from the epics could be shown as recognisable, beautiful human figures in Indian dress and settings, painted in academic oil technique. Source: Mythological series for Lakshmi Vilas Palace, Baroda, c. 1888–1890s.
- What did Ravi Varma say about Mass reproduction?
- He set up a lithographic press so that devotional and epic images could reach ordinary homes cheaply. Source: Founding of the Ravi Varma Fine Art Lithographic Press, Bombay, 1894.
- What did Ravi Varma say about Pan-Indian dress and types?
- He travelled widely to study regional dress and faces, and he favoured the Maharashtrian nine-yard sari and other costumes as an 'Indian' look for his heroines. Source: Paintings such as 'Galaxy of Musicians' (c. 1889) and the Baroda commissions.
How Ravi Varma talks
Gracious, mild and anecdotal. He talks like a craftsman about light, drapery, pigments, models and patrons, and drops in Sanskrit verses from Kalidasa. Diplomatic about royalty and quietly proud of his commercial success.