Raja Ravi Verma (1848-1906) was the Indian King and painter whose paintings brought a momentous turn in Indian art as his works on great Indian epics Ramayana and Mahabharata brought the ubiquitous God and Goddesses to the surroundings of earthy world and showed excellent fusion of Indian traditional art with European realism. Those gorgeous paintings not only inexorably influenced future generation of artists but also immensely influenced the literature and Hindi film Industry, where especially the dressings in the paintings are even followed today.

Ravi Verma was born on April 29,1848 in Kilimanoor Palace as the son of Umamba Thampuratti and Neelakandan Bhattathiripad. The southern Keralian royal family was the birthplace of many scholar, poets and artists and so Ravi Verma was brought up in an environment of art and culture.

At the age of seven only Ravi Verma started painting the figures of animals, acts and scenes from daily life on the wall with charcoal. This annoyed other house members but RaviVerma`s uncle Raja Raja Verma, who himself was a Tanjore Artist could recognize the blossoming genius. He started lessons of paintings to little Ravi and took a keen interest in his further study with the help of ruling king, Ayilayam Thirunal.

When Ravi Verma was about the age of 14,he was sent to Thiruvananthapuram to stay at the Moodath Madam house of the Kilimanoor Palace, where he was taught water painting by the palace painter Rama Swamy Naidu. After three years Theodor Jenson, a British painter taught him oil painting. His talents also flourished by the personal interest of Ayilyam Thirunal who exposed him to the famous paintings of Italian painters. Here Ravi Verma was using indigenous paints made from leaves, flowers. Tree bark and soil which his uncle Raja Verma prepared for him. It was only after seeing a newspaper advertisement his first set of oil paints was bought from Madras and he used this long-desired colors with great excitement and nervousness.

Verma`s next venture was to master this new medium of painting, as the technique was very new and elusive to painters those days. The only person in Travancore knew it was Ramaswamy Naicker of Madura but he refused to teach Ravi Verma as he considered him as potential writer. Naicker`s student Arumugham Pillai used to sneak into Moodath Madam at nightfall to share his knowledge with Verma, even against his teacher`s wish. It was only when a Dutch painter came to portray Ayilyam Thirunal and his wife, Ravi Verma could learn the techniques of blending, smoothing and maneuvering the flexibility of this slow drying and pliable medium through hard-working and trial and error method.

But when this self-taught artist painted the portrait of the same couple his talent was clearly shown. He enhanced his creativity by listening to the music of Veterans, watching Kathakali, going through the manuscripts preserved in ancient families and listening to the artistic interpretation of the epics. Ravi Verma`s fame as a portrait artist rose high when he painted several portraits of the Indian aristocracy and British officials between 1870 and 1878, and the sensitivity and immense competence of this artist still remains unsurpassed.

The fame of Ravi Verma was so soared that Kilimanoor was compelled to open a post office , as countless letters with requests of paintings arrived everyday from everywhere. That time Ravi Verma was got immense recognition in major exhibitions abroad mostly for the portrait-based renditions, which were the perfect blend of the personality and the attire of the person, portrayed.

These works were excellent fusion of the elements of the early Tanjore custom of painting Nayikas (the feminine emotions being the central theme) and the graceful realism of European masters. In 1873 he won the First Prize at the Madras Painting Exhibition but became a world famous Indian painter only after winning the First Prize Vienna Exhibition in 1873. Besides portraits and portrait-based compositions, Verma now embarked on honing an oeuvre for theatrical compositions based on Indian myths and legends. With oil paints applied thickly, Ravi Verma now created lustrous, wedged jewellery, brocaded textures, and subtle shades of complexions. He carefully and cleverly chose the touchy stories from Sanskrit Classics and depicted them in such a way that his paintings started telling the stories and became lively and enchanting on beholder`s eyes.

Raja Ravi Verma painted numerous series among which ` Nala Damayanti`, ` Shantanu and Matsyagandha`, ` Shantanu and Ganga`, `Radha and Madhava`, `Kamsa Maya`, `Shrikrishna and Devaki`, ` Arjuna and Subhadra`, ` Draupadi Vastraharan`, `Harischandra and Taramati`, `Vishwamitra and Menaka`, ` Seetaswayamvaram`, `Young Bharat and a Lion Cub`, ` The Birth of Sri Krishna`, `Keechaka and Sairanthri`, `Village Belle`, `Lady Lost in Thought`, `Damayanti Talking to a Swan` , `The Orchestra` , `Lady with Fruit` , `The Heartbroken Jatayu`, `A bird devotee of Lord Rama is mauled by Rawana`, `Victory of Indrajit` , `A Family of Beggars` , `A Lady Playing Swarbat`, `Lady Giving Alms at the Temple`, `Lord Rama Conquers Varuna` , `Nair Woman`, `Romancing Couple`, `Draupadi Dreading to Meet Kichaka` , `Shantanu and Matsyagandha` , `Shakuntala Composing a Love Letter to King Dushyanta`, `Girl in Sage Kanwa`s Hermitage (Rishi-Kanya)`can be named which took new forms under his brush.

Ravi Varma was convinced that mass reproduction of his paintings would initiate millions of Indians to real Art, and for this reason in 1894 he set up an oleography press called the `Ravi Verma Pictures Depot`. For photo-litho transfers, the Pictures Depot relied on Phalke`s Engraving & Printing whose proprietor, Dhundiraj Govind Phalke, became famous as dadasaheb of Indian Cinema a few years later. In 1888 and 1994 Ravi Verma and his younger brother took a tour around India in search of images and landscapes for inspiration. After returning Ravi Verma painted a batch of pictures especially for his press, which was more folkish and more sellable. The Calendar-Art thus brought-forth by Ravi Varma has been the origin of lakhs of gaudy god-pictures by ultramodern litho presses for decades.

Ravi Varma is considered as modern among traditionalists and a rationalist among moderns. He provided a vital connection between the traditional Indian art and the contemporary art, between the Thanjavoor School and Western Academic realism. He brought Indian painting to the attention of the larger world.

Raja Ravi Varma breathed his last on 2nd October 1906 in his palace of Kilimanoor.