Raja Ravi Varma

He tied the nuptial knot with Pururuttathi Nal Bhageerathi, who belonged to the royal family of Mavelikara. The couple was blessed with five children, two sons and three daughters.

He breathed his last on October 5, 1906 in the village of Kilimanoor in Travancore. He was 58 at the time of his death.

His family continued his artistic lineage. While his second son Rama Varma was an artist trained at JJ School of Arts, his daughters served as his inspiration for his paintings and continued his artistic creativity through their offsprings and grand-children.

Raja Ravi Varma was born to Umamba Thampuratti and Neelakanthan Bhattatiripad on April 29, 1848, in the princely state of Kilimanoor, in Kerala. While his mother was a poet and a writer by profession, his father was a scholar. He had three siblings, Goda Varma, Raja Varma and Mangala Bayi.

Coming from a family of creative personnel comprising of scholars, poets and painters, it was only natural for young Varma to be blessed with artistic ingenuity.

At the young age of seven, he started showing signs of taking the artistic route. Whatever he came across in his day to day living, such as pictures of animals, everyday acts and scenes, later adorned the walls of his home, reflecting his creativity and artistic sense.

While his family abhorred this behaviour of young Varma, it was his uncle, Raja Raja Varma, a Tanjore artist, who realized his true potential and calling. He resolved to tap the creative ingenuity of the young boy to make him a proficient artist.

With the help of his uncle and the ruling king, Ayilyam Thirunal, he received training and education in arts. His uncle also gave him his first ever drawing lesson.

In Thiruvananthapuram, he stayed at the Moodath Madam house of the Kilimanoor Palace. It was at Kilimanoor Palace that his talent was encouraged and reared by Ayilyam Thirunal, who alternatively exposed the former to the famous paintings of Italian painters and Western artists.

All through, instead of using the conventional paints, he opted for indigenous paints made from leaves, flowers, tree bark and soil. It was only after seeing an advertisement in a newspaper that he brought his first set of oil paints from Madras.

During those times, oil painting was a new medium and only one person, namely Ramaswamy Naicker of Madurai, had the knowledge of oil painting techniques, in Travacore. But he refused to teach Ravi Varma the art of oil painting as he saw him as his potential rival.

It was Arumugham Pillai, Naicker's student, who then took it upon himself to teach him the nuances of oil painting much against the wishes of his teacher. This knowledge was then supplemented by some more information from Dutch portrait artist Theodor Jenson who had come over to paint the portrait of Ayilyam Thirunal and his wife

It was through trial and error that he finally learned the nuances of oil painting by blending colors, mixing them in pliable medium and smoothly manoeuvring through the strokes, allowing time for the color to dry.

At the beginning of his career, in 1873, he won an award in Vienna where his paintings were exhibited.

At the World’s Columbian Exposition in 1893, he was bestowed with three gold medals for his work of art.

In 1904, on behalf of the King Emperor, Viceroy Lord Curzon awarded him with the Kaisar-i-Hind Gold Medal.

Several schools, colleges, institutions and cultural organizations have been named after him, such as Raja Ravi Varma High School at Kilimanoor, a college dedicated to fine arts in Mavelikara, Kerala, and so on.

In 2013, a crater on Mercury was named in the honor of this greater Indian painter.