Ravivarma's Subjects

Raja Ravi Varma's Subjects

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Raja Ravi varma was very choosy in selecting the type of women with traits that approximated his heroines of the classical Indian poetry, more especially from the neo classical Manipravada schools of Malayalam in which the sensuous, even erotic, adornation of the feminine charm is the dominant theme..

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He found this in his own people especially from the matrilineal Nair community women., from which the men of higher castes took their wives, he painted them in great variety of works at their bathing ghat, on the swing, or at siesta, playing musical instruments, listening to gossips, at vigils, at trysts, temples and merged them to charecters in Puranas, Itihasa, Godesses, Legends and imparted life and gave a face to them through his master strokes and in fact it was through his portrayal most of the hindu gods are personified and still worshipped..

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Ravi varma draped most of his heroines in the saree and it is a tribute to his aesthetic sense that it was a charm of his heroines draped in the saree that persuaded, to a great extent, the young women hood of those period in India to take to this costume as their national dress., Even the women of Kerala who were long habituated to the white mundu took to the saree with enthusiasm...