It is now well established by research that the work of arguably the first modern Indian painter Raja Ravi Varma of Travancore lies at the heart of modern India’s sensibilities towards its mythic past and history. From matchbox labels and calendars to popular book illustrations and popular theatrical sets and most importantly cinematic iconography of mythological characters and ideal stereotypes as well as architectural settings, the Raja has influenced them all over the past century and continues to do so till date. The father of Indian cinema Dadasaheb Phalke had a close association with Varma’s work. This year we see the production of two biopics dedicated to this colossus of modern Indian culture – Ketan Mehta’s Rang Rasiya dealing with Ravi Varma’s relationship with his model Sugandha and Shaji Karun’s yet unnamed project. A major re-evaluation of Ravi Varma’s contribution to Indian modernity and more specifically to the aesthetics of cinema is underway it seems.

Noted scholars who have written on Ravi Varma’s contribution to modern Indian art and cinema and filmmakers who have meditated on the relationship between the Raja’s art and cinema bring to this session their expertise to dwell upon the manner in which the artist’s oeuvre and influence demonstrate how certain sensibilities have flowed seamlessly from high art through popular arts of the street and back into cinema in India.

 Bio-notes

Ketan Mehta is on of India’s leading filmmakers. He has made innumerable feature films, documentaries and television series. Many of these award-winning works handle themes such as romance, violence and rebellion. He has been on the jury of various national and international film festivals. His films A Touch of Spice and The Rising have been shown at Osian’s-Cinefan.

 Ashish Rajadhayksha is senior fellow at the Centre for Studies in Society and Culture. He has written and lectured extensively on cinema and the political economy of Indian culture including landmark essays on the relationship between Raja Ravu Varma, DR Phalke and early Indian cinema. He is the co-editor along with Paul Willemen of The Encyclopaedia of Indian Cinema. We await his forthcoming two-volume work Cinema in the Time of Celluloid.

G Arunima is Associate Professor at the Women’s Studies Program at the Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi. She is the author of There Comes Papa: Colonialism and the Transformation of Matriliny in Kerala, Malabar, 1850-1940. Recently, she has written an article analyzing the portrait paintings of Raja Ravi Varma.

Geeta Kapur is an eminent art and cultural critic and curator, who lives in New Delhi. She is the author of Contemporary Indian Artists and a collection of essays on art, culture and politics When was Modernism: Essays on Contemporary Cultural Practice in India. Her next book Iconographies for the Present is awaited. She has written extensively on the relationship between art and cinema and more particularly about Raja Ravi Varma’s influence on Indian cinema.

Suresh Chabria is at present the Professor of Film Studies at the Film and Television Institute of India, Pune. He has been director of the National Film Archives of India. He has written and lectured extensively on film. He edited the Light of Asia: Indian Silent Cinema, 1912-1934 along with Paolo Cherchi Usai and Virchand Dharamsey that carried pioneering essays on early Indian cinema.

Jyotindra Jain has been a leading cultural activist of India. He has been an eminent director of the Indian Crafts Museum, Delhi, where he had been instrumental in developing some of the most important programs for connecting up with all strata of Indian artistic practice. An anthropologist by training, he has lectured extensively on the dynamics of Indian culture and most notably on the relationship between Indian tradition and modernity. He has written many books on Indian culture and most recently authored India’s Popular Culture: Iconic Spaces, Fluid Images.