|
|
Women
Women in
Raja Ravi Varma Mold-2
 This
is an honest remark given the post-feminism phase and times that are so
guided by market forces. But ask a senior woman painter like Arpana Caur
and the response is very different. Says she, "I have never liked the
representation of women by Varma. It is too calendar-like. Women in his
works are much like the ornaments they wear. They are either idealized or
turned into objects of desire with their clinging wet saris. These are not
down-to-earth women who work like you and me."
In fact a decade ago, well-known Mumbai-based painter Nalini Malani had
picked a quarrel with Varma and gave expression to it through a painting
called 'Re-thinking Varma'. This was a strong reaction to his painting,
'Galaxy of Musicians'. Pushing Varma's musicians to the margins of the
canvas, Malani instead has youthful full-bodied women and a powerful
mother figure occupying centre stage.
Varma's women are generally laden with ornaments and follow the colonial
stereotypes of oriental femininity. The rich costumes, ornate jewelry and
lavish backdrops are all designed with a special appeal. It is exotica at
its best and it still continues to excite the western eye. And the eastern
eye is quick to ape the west.
Says Pran Neville, author of books like 'The Nautch Girls of India' and
'Beyond the Veil -Indian Women in the Raj', "His women, be they goddesses
or village belles, are not true to life. They are what an ideal woman
should be. And as far as the embellishment of women goes, he surpasses all
artists in the East or the West."
Caur on the other hand says, "His women are decorated like Christmas
trees." There are several Varma opponents among the intelligentsia. Senior
painter Ghulam Mohammad Sheikh says that thousands of works have given him
sensuous pleasure and have stayed in his consciousness but not a single
one of these has been painted by Varma.
A balanced appraisal of Varma's representation of women comes from Gogi
Saroj Pal, a painter who has constantly worked on the image of women: "Varma
painted a certain class and mostly commissioned works. He belonged to
another era and two World Wars separate him from us. We make statements.
He did not. But he was a skilled craftsman and his eye for detail of the
Indian skin, textiles and jewelry is exceptional."
The painter's life and times played a major role in the shaping of the
women he painted. He belonged to a feudal family in the small state of
Kilmanoor in present-day Kerala, which specialised in rearing bridegrooms
for the Travancore royalty. But Varma was rejected by the princess of
Travancore when he was just 14. His uncle decided to take this talented
boy to the world of art although these were times when no artists came
from the aristocracy. This lad could not be a prince; instead he became an
artist painting out feminine fantasies. And these fantasies became a part
of the national imagination. Even in his lifetime, his images of women
became the unique selling point of the indigenous consumer industry and
were to be found on match boxes, cosmetics and fabric labels.
Varma's images have not just survived, they have thrived over a century.
The image of his "Bharatiya nari" has influenced theatre, cinema,
television and popular art (posters and calendars) in a big way. His
portrayal of women has also influenced a number of painters who followed
like Dhurandar in Maharashtra, Hemendranath Mazumdar in Bengal and G
Thakur Singh in Punjab. These artists have in turn influenced many others
and the Ravi Varma `gharana' is well-entrenched.
Mythological cinema and television too have thrived on the image of
goddesses and gods as created by this visual wizard from Kerala. Even
social cinema has not been able to escape him. The wet saris that Raj
Kapoor draped on his heroines in films like `Satyam Shivam Sundaram' and
'Ram Teri Ganga Maili' are the Raja's legacy. So also the goddess-like
appearance of Meena Kumari in Guru Dutt's 'Sahib, Bibi Aur Ghulam'.
Theatre, too, has taken a leaf out of Varma's book. He has been one of the
greatest influences on costumes on the Marathi and Gujarati stage: the
famed female impersonators of the early 20th century, Bal Gandharva and
Jaishankar Sundari, seemed to have walked out of the frames of his
paintings.
Despite the annoyance of his detractors, women in the Raja Ravi Varma
mould are hard to drive away. Their fascination - and his art - endure.
They are everywhere: from our puja rooms to the Ramlila grounds; from the
big screen to the small screen; from advertisement labels to seasonal
greeting cards.
–
Nirupama Dutt
January 20, 2002
Top
| Back |
Women
By arrangement with
Womens Feature Service
|
|
