Snapshots of India

While women were the frequent subject of Ravi Varma’s paintings, the diary records that they were the most difficult, insisting on wearing saris which were difficult to paint and never satisfied with their dress or ornament. Several photographs of nudes from foreign magazines reveal that they often used these for models in the absence of real life ones. Most of the other models were nautch girls and Raja Varma complains in an entry in February 15, 1902: “These prostitutes readily come if called for immoral purposes, but when required for posing they raise great objections.” Many of his famous paintings like ‘Damyanti’ were made after studying photographs of theatrical productions like the

‘Feast of Roses’ which had an actress languishing on the balustrade over an absent lover.

Although their patrons were mostly the wealthy, Varma’s work was disseminated amongst the common people after the setting up of the Ravi Varma Fine Arts Lithographic Press in Bombay in 1894. The press manned by German technicians brought out reproductions of his paintings which were often made more ornamental with gold sheet and tinsel. The diary also records the Bombay plague which spread a few years later and the screening of people leaving the city for possible infection, “Near the railway station below our bungalow plague sheds were erected. Arrangements have been made to disinfect those Bombay passengers who alight here” Lonavala, February 16, 1899. As a result the press was moved to Malvali-Lonavala but increasing financial trouble made the brothers sell it to their German manager, Fritz Schleicher in 1903.

A thoughtful record of some of the most eventful years of their lives, the book is of interest to the common reader as well as the art researcher. The photographs add to our knowledge of how some of the earliest works of modern art in India came into existence.