Thread by @jvmenon

Revisiting the practice of Raja Ravi Varma through burlesque versions of some of his famous pre modern works.. 😇

Raja Ravi Varma Reimagined..

In revisiting some of the the enigmatic portraits of Raja Ravi Varma., the style in him gets revealed, an adaptation of realism which transformed the way Indian gods & goddesses got pictured.

Apparently, Raja Ravi Varma taught himself the medium by observing a Dutch painter, Theodor Janson..

Bulk of the subject matter of his portrait based paintings involved his muse who came to allegorize “the Maharastrian lady”, “Hamsa Damayanti“, “Menaka & Shakuntala” — works that caught the fancy of many admirers & critics alike.

Raja Ravi Varma’s representational dilemma seemed more a negotiation between memory, reality and imagination that brought him wrath and recognition alike 😀

The reality of an event, person or feeling with its imagined presentation carefully hid the imagined — bringing out an illusion out from the two dimensionality of the surface, visible to the viewer without using linear perspective, creating the charade of the third dimension.

In his works there is much focus on the details, the play of light & shadows, adding to the depth, small nuances - like bringing out the effect of how the folds of a sari fluttered,

how the strands of hair coiled, and how the eyes he depicted expressed a longing., almost as if the eyes were waiting to blink.

Learning includes a process of unlearning, returning to who you were before the world got its hands on you !

Using slightly thicker strokes, the ornaments that adorned his muse shimmers in a perceived angle of light.
In the Raja Ravi Varma technique of application, Colours were not meant to recreate reality, instead,

.. the colours from the paint blended into the subject evoking an emotional connection to the painting, a remarkable shift from the type of art that was painted back then.

Raja Ravi Varma’s style unfolds into multiplicity. Instead of upholding the natural essence of rendition, his works were more a portrayal of a scene from somewhere between reality, imagination & memory.

Imitating Raja Ravi Varma., fuels imagination, resonating with inspiration — it’s not where you take concepts from, it’s where you take them to., learning from it in more ways than one.

Parody acts as a catalyst to learning, the shadow of what is mimicked in a comic-ironic contre-partie artifice of trivialisation, inversion combined with a lot of exaggeration...

Van Gogh had once written “Does what goes on inside an artist show on the outside ? Someone has a great fire in his soul and nobody ever comes to warm themselves at it, and passers-by see nothing but a little smoke at the top of the chimney.”

The smoke atop of the chimney carries the smells of the recipe that is cooking on the inside - a unique visual language of realism, the medium providing for a bewitching theatre on canvas.

Learning Ravi Varma’s portrait-based renditions, his meticulous compositions of people, their emotions and attires — is time well spent..

The ultimate learning experience I may get from this study is probably that of self discovery and the essence of that learning may never be known on the outside — maybe only the fleeting glimpses of some of the saner parts.

I guess some bits of acquired knowledge flows from ‘the study’ into ‘the purpose’ — the purpose tries hard to avoid decay in accordance to the 2nd law of thermodynamics by importing useful information, or negative entropy from what is studied..

Any study is a paradox of engaged renunciation — I have to work at learning if I want the lesson to work for me.

Learning is the consequence of a desire, driven by a need to find more information about a subject and apply that knowledge for some purpose.

My interest in learning stuff related to art is probably the result of the kind of knowledge I despair of in others..

It’s believed in this part of the world that there is a Goddess of knowledge worshipped in every household — Goddess Saraswati. She can be divined out of every tool of learning - the Goddess resides in every brush, every pencil, every word, in every musical note

Knowledge is Shakti say some scriptures.

Raja Ravi Varma painted a classic in 1896, his style of depicting Saraswati is iconic in how the everyday Goddess of knowledge is visualised —

this one work leaves behind his brilliant legacy of academic realism right down to the description of the goddess given in the Holy Scriptures.

Some trivia about the Goddess Saraswati ; the Hindu goddess of knowledge, music, arts, wisdom and nature.

The Goddess is also revered by believers in China as Biàncáitiān, in Japan as Benzaiten and in Thai as Surasawadee.

She is believed to be a part of the trinity of Saraswati, Lakshmi and Parvati. All the three forms help the trinity of Brahma, Vishnu & Shiva in the creation, maintenance & destruction of the Universe.

She governs the free flow of wisdom and consciousness.

Her depiction involves various symbols of adornment.
The musical “Veena” for instance represents mastery over the physical organs and over one’s actions.
The veena is considered the symbol of life and its strings are symbolic of “feelings”.

The “Peacock” is symbolic of worldly knowledge and its colorful feathers represents gains in name and fame and success in general.

The calling of anyone studying art, in any medium, is to make it new without repudiating the old,

The essence of making art is to stay connected with the source

I am engaged in an autodidactic study of Raja Ravi Varma, not as a pasticheur interested in the final rendition, not in the ‘thing’ called painting, signed sealed and delivered to an audience that is intoxicated on acquiring random limited edition pieces.

This study means so much more than that - my interest is not so much in the ‘output’ but in art as a process, the thing in being, the being of the thing, the energy that has found its expression in a certain way on the canvas.

Today happens to be the 157th birth anniversary of Swami Vivekananda.

Take up one idea.
Make that one idea your life - think of it, dream of it, live on that idea.
Let the brain, muscles, nerves, every part of your body, be full of that idea, and just leave every other idea alone.
This is the way to success.
#SwamiVivekananda

In pursuit of an idea so enlightening that even if I fail., I will be better off with the ‘me’ that tried.

I guess I am after the problem of being an artist,
I don’t think I want to get it solved & lose a connection with a trail of thoughts that I didn’t even know I had forgotten.

That feeling of despair at having forgotten a portion of what was once there — That inability to reconnect is the shadow aspect of Saraswati, times when the Goddess shows her shadow side when we fall prey to judgement, criticism, doubt, and fear.

Sloppy study kills learning

Goddess Saraswati — her name means “to flow”—to be in the flow with your capacities. She connects us to our gifts of expression; when you see a dancer, read a piece of writing, or hear someone speak from the heart. That is the Goddess Saraswati at work.

Most subjective discoveries are associated with illogical idle autodidactic activities

The experience of Saraswati is a subjective contact with a primordial force, that is in state of dormant harmony with the soul’s shadow.

Probably the best of everything manifest is conjured only by devotees of the divine — where devotion comes disguised as purpose!

Shakti is about finding purpose.

There is this long standing myth of setting out on a path with a purpose — the idea that the path must reveal itself before you embark upon it, that the artist must rid her/himself to find her/himself before beginning any endeavour.

Learning challenges the ‘I’ that ‘we’ are.

Trying to not be overwhelmed by the height of the ladder, limiting focus on that firm step on the first rung.

THERE ARE ALWAYS lessons to learn: it just requires developing an eye for them.

Learning about a style of painting is akin to visiting a place where the people there don’t understand the language you speak,

so gradually, out of compulsion and wanting to be understood, you learn a bit of their language - first a few words, then a little grammar, just be in a position to converse with the people of that place...

A new study is a lot like that — and the sooner you learn the new, easier goes the composition.

When you learn to speak the most intimate expression about what you intend to portray, the universe listens.

As a kid Ravi Varma learnt the language the universe comprehends — a kid who grew up making charcoal graffitis on freshly whitewashed temple walls,

Long before Raja Ravi Varma became a legend and attained such mastery of his craft, he was able to explain a kinda human nature of goddesses far better than any scripture could explain to a lay audience,

At some point along his journey, he might have been confronted with an existential challenge some time in his life like what most aspiring artists face when they set out to find their purpose and get to do what they love —

something that requires the discomforting uncertainty of deviating from a beaten path.

That’s the path ahead, uncertain, yet I must continue; doing nothing isn’t an option, if I don’t learn something new from the old —

if I don’t keep wandering with the craft, then I can conclude I am truly lost. That’s just how it is, keep on, keep on, that’s all that is needed.

But to what ultimate goal ?
Ditch the goal, whatever it is,
will become clearer, will take shape slowly and surely,

From how an imagined vignette becomes an artist impression and from that a sketch & from that to a painting, as the work progresses, the artist gets to dig deeper into the initially vague thought, the inception, passing thoughts finding its roots..

In disbelief I become a believer in my craft, in a way, and though having changed I am the same, and my torment is none other than this,

what could I be good for, couldn’t I serve and be useful in some way, how could I come to know more thoroughly, and go more deeply into the subject ?

The fire within that no one sees, what is seen is a little smoke at the top of the chimney. That fire burns patiently, but how much is the wait, asks impatience

Anyone who is in love with a patient fire is cloaked with that armour against the opinions of the critics in the world .

Rendering something for the sake of art is the principle of all artists: a kinda motivation that originates not from the consolations and accolades from an audience.

Art is my hedge against conformity

An endeavour that lets latent creativity run amok, intimate, delicate, alive with color in the making of which, time is agreeably frittered.

"I know the outer world as well as you do, and I judge it. You know nothing of my inner world, and yet you presume to judge that world."
Aldous Huxley

A new study is like a panacea —

the cure for creative constipation is emotional fiber. Getting the feel of  'something', anything that acts as a mental cleanse , a cranial laxative.

From some sacred ancient memories of joy, pain, loss ; anything that allows the heart to flutter, to go eerily cold or whatever else that makes it leap erratically, allowing those synapses in the cranial bowels to find a release trigger..

Mysterious bonds of understanding get established through a craft that can’t be taught, it’s (l)earned.

Raja Ravi Varma used a form of academic realism to paint not just Indian subjects but also representations the various gods, goddesses, characters and scenes from Indian mythology as realistic human figures in elaborate drapes.

Cannot help but marvel at his extraordinary skill of rendering his lifelike composition titled “Radha in moonlight” — with the use of materials that creates this unbelievable illusion of realism.

Even if you taking out a swatch/section of Raja Ravi Verma's painting — even that swatch will not be without context.

It’s all in the quality of attention we pay to things

The texture and luminosity that Varma achieves of the Radha’s exquisite saree is a lesson in realism, its folds literally leaping out of the two dimensional frame.

So is the flesh tone & the dimensional volumes of Radha depicting a longing in moonlight, every adornment rich with a demure kind of sophistication –

her delicately clasped hands - adds to the emotion of the moonlight night.

My study of Raja Ravi Varma is more of parodical rearrangements and re-imaginings of some of his iconographic works, set in similar surroundings as from the scenes and portraits of his time

instead of being preoccupied with realistic representation of subject(/s), my work seeks to present a sense of the mood and feeling of the moment / the person.

So one may not know how exactly Radha looks like by looking at a painting of her in moonlight, but one could get a whiff of the prevailing mood of that moment, or rather the mood that is intended to be solicited from the audience.

One problematic aspect which is actually the problem of realism itself, is the hazardous possibility of a realist work of art being perceived to be the representation of a parallel/alternate reality..

In Raja Ravi Varma's ‘Radha in Moonlight’, the representation is so real that it is hard to imagine an alternate reality, let alone an alternate visual of Radha.

But in this pastiche creation, forced to settle down for a magical personal space with a subjective narrative instead of making a realistic one,

A realistic illusion often extends to the limit when a viewer starts to ‘believe’ that by viewing a representation, the viewer has also in a way ‘known' the idea of what is (not) portrayed.

After all this is a world made of those illusions we (mis)interpret as reality.

Raja Ravi Varma’s mark is seen in the sensitivity involved in his depictions, drawing appreciation that beauty would often be described as — “as if she had stepped out of a Varma canvas.”

In his rendition titled the Milk Maid, circa 1900 — he treats a common subject of genre painting, following precisely the style of academicism.

The lustrous simplicity with which he handles the material of commonplace things as if paying a distant tribute to the Dutch portraitist who taught him the craft of using a medium of pigment with drying oil - Theodor Jenson.

& yet the vision that emerges is that of his own — The Milk Maid, a painting of his muse, draped in sari, a living, breathing portrait of L'art pompier.

Difficult to re-imagine, but trying though !!

The Milkmaid has a certain tactile quality to it, as if you can feel the environment, a unique compositional feature that the subject is no delicate beauty, no idealized abstraction, but a real person who is focused on her work.

While Raja Ravi Varma was feted for his work, he was also ridiculed by critics for imitating western techniques.

& ‘imitating’ Raja Ravi Varma’s works is bit of an artifice, to reimagine yet retaining the essence of the medium in a way.

Some imitations mimic elements of the source in an inappropriate context ..,

... like derivatives, extending from what came before rather than creating something from thin air under the influence of a mythical muse.

Parodical reimagining is a bit about maintaining the form or style, but changing the content, offering unexpected content in familiar packages, like glue coming out of a tube of toothpaste.

There is absolutely no magic trick to the stuff I do — nothing more than ordinary application of ordinary tools of thought using readily available existing materials.

The substrate from where we tend to our compositions is something we understand so little of even though it keeps giving so much

Heard this expression somewhere “Facta, Non Verba” — there is even a little more nuance to this Latin expression that is fitting when you are out learning something – Actions, not just words..

Act with whatever you learn!

Intent is only a promise that subsequent actions must fulfil.

The initial idea contains ordered or useful energy, rich in information, awaiting action..

Overthinking is wasted energy, information poor, like the noise in a bad phone connection.

I guess the 2nd law of thermodynamics exacts it’s toll on everyone — for the artist to progress nonetheless, in concentrating acquired information within her/himself; exporting the entropy

I guess, any learning is like a wave function, derived thoughts containing all the information.

New learning unravels how information behaves is as incongruent as a canvas and a brush, yet they seemingly adapt to the purpose that they flow towards.

States of learning are unbound in complexity and are ‘prone’ to evolution.

An artist may get lucky to find the pathways to new realms of complexities to direct the flow of a study and it’s outcome by not following through with traditional conventions.

Studying period art is great tool to identify certain motifs or fundamental patterns that manifest as the life within every form of art..

And from that with a bit of thought, a defining moment may arrive: when the learning directs an artist to a particular flow or a connect with a network from a nether realm – a lot like the Butterfly Effect.

The Butterfly Effect from chaos theory is a concept about how small initial ‘causes’ (ideas) create large ripple effects.

We see so much happening in the tech space - information processing done on a cloud with universal degrees of freedom, yet in the local – and therein an analogy, there might be a universal warp through which some artists learn 😀

Often transiting from realm to realm, sometimes nested sequences of transitions and for each iteration, there would emerge new worlds, new motifs.

Words may fall short to describe such an experience, so here goes ‘a musical explainer’ 😀

In some ways Art could be understood in terms of division & subtraction to get down to the fundamental building blocks of symmetries & their interactions.

I'm not so sure if it’s the best way, but it is certainly a lot of fun to think things in terms of their fundamental building blocks. Compare with particle physics, the basics constituents of matter — quarks!

Quarks are what you would find if you were able to take a piece of matter and cut it in half again and again until you could cut no more.

A lot similar to what quarks are — the sub sub sub subatomic particles thought to make up nearly everything we see, those are the stuff that not actually exist.

They may instead be a tantalising illusion, the result of a quantum ‘Maya’ that science doesn’t yet fully understand.

This thread now seems to be going on a tangent ?! Damn!

Somewhere earlier I think I started out describing learning as a wave function !

And now that wave function seems to have collapsed ?!

What causes the collapse of the wave function?

It is with the advent of new stuff, new information at the hands of the learner,

Extending the concept to how we see — such as, when you look at a Ravi Varma painting., photons of a certain wave length reflected off the painting hitting the eye and entering the eye through a lens which focuses that light on to the retina.

The retina then sending a signal to the brain via the optic nerve and the brain then turning that information into the images that is ‘seen’

Those images and cumulative information stored from past memories of the other senses constitute our entire sensory world of perception.

Ok! Someday soon, will need to do a mini-thread on the science of sight.. starting from here

https://twitter.com/jvmenon/status/1156033238940315648?s=21

Clearly a Ravi Varma painting or for that matter any other sensory data could not exist without our observing it.

Nothing else in our entire sensory world exists without an observational reference,

So that is probably why the eventual result that presents itself in the form of a painting reimagined from back in time, indicates probably the presence of certain quantum entities, which manifest on the macro surface called the canvas as something relatable but different..

“Oops! That’s not what this thread was meant to be, it was meant to be on Raja Ravi Varma”, reminds the artist in me 😇

A “cosmologist” in me responds “Those off-beat derivative thoughts were more of a bit like what the universal background radiation is to the Big Bang theory — like that all pervading afterglow from the fiery birth of our universe.”

A far saner voice inside then says “Well, like everything else including the Universe, my paper/canvas started out with absolutely no information content”

The evidence of the artist’s ‘afterglow’ exists somewhere invisible on any painting

The source from where art gets interpreted is not of the artist; it’s the environment, the audience.

A better interpretation would be that art does not exist except when observed.

The painting is only a colourful representation of a collapsed wave function !!

Reminded of this -

https://twitter.com/jvmenon/status/1153509575535947776

Any creation probably represents the metamorphosis of a previously collapsed wave function - more on that here

https://twitter.com/jvmenon/status/1024981393108021249?s=20

When the wave function collapses, it’s as if all other alternate futures fracture and ripple out.

All that matters is that one version that gets created, in which everything turns out fine & the hundred other alternate versions need not turn up good..

To create, you only have to stop trying to pin down an ‘exact’ trajectory.

Expectation is probably the worst way to experience reality.

So, I no longer dread outcomes, even the shitty ones.

Anticipate they may turn bad, and remind yourself to calm the hell down.

We can try to look for better days. In the end, all possible outcomes are always narrowing down to one unchangeable present.

Perhaps we seek to create what we feel an absence of — the outcome of a coping mechanism.

Outside is form. Inside is thought. Within is a sacred place.

Perhaps the same went through the head of Raja Ravi Varma, the concept of “modern art” being a transition from a state of catalepsis — the advent of new methodological influences.

Deviating from traditional Indian mediums such as natural pigments, Raja Ravi Varma became the first Indian artist to work with oil paints.

And from the multitudes, Raja Ravi Varma picked few moments of stillness, high on emotion..

He combined the techniques of European salon art and used them to depict recognizably Indian scenarios and characters. It was the perfect narrative language of the times..

A contrast to what I am doing — past imagined as present melodrama 😀

Mine is not about the struggle of an artist to gain technique, but a struggle to find an outward expression of some inner meanings.

Somewhat like using the outer ‘form’ from Raja Ravi Varma’s work as a stepping-stone to further an expression.

A kinda labour that achieves stillness in the midst of chaos, that stillness emanating from a place of enormous tumult into a symphonic composition of counterpoints in resonance.

Without a bit of learning., work is futile. Can’t churn water and expect butter to rise up.

There is freedom in being impaired,
Being blind to distinctions of conventions,
Being deaf to popular demands,
Dumbfounded at a universe full of opportunities,
Teading to only the trend of an inner need,
Of what springs from the soul.
The outward expression of inner meaning.

Raja Ravi Varma must be rolling over somewhere in the great ever-after., having created a unique visual language for India that is just as captivating today as it was more than a century ago.

Artists will die; what matters are the seeds that were sown through labor, giving birth to a whole world that outlives the artist..

Now, about to complete this thread on Raja Ravi Varma, I could feel no less than the plenitude of a fulfilled duty.

From now on begins my search for new and greater challenges.